Turkey's banking sector posted a net profit of TL 57.3 billion ($7.37 billion) in the first 11 months of 2020, the country's banking watchdog said Tuesday.

The sector's net profit was up 23% compared with TL 46.55 billion in the same period last year, according to a Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) report.

Total assets of the sector rose 34.8% year-on-year to some TL 6.12 trillion as of the end of November, the report showed.

Loans, the biggest subcategory of assets, were TL 3.63 trillion, increasing 39.7% compared with the same period last year.

On the liabilities side, deposits held at lenders in Turkey – the largest liabilities item – totaled nearly TL 3.48 trillion, up some 42% year-on-year.

Pointing to lenders' minimum capital requirements, the banking sector's regulatory capital-to-risk-weighted-assets ratio – the higher the better – was 19.38% by the end of November, versus 18.63% in the same period of the previous year.

The ratio of nonperforming loans to total cash loans was 3.97% in the same period, versus 5.23% a year ago.

A total of 51 state/private/foreign lenders, including deposit banks, participation banks, and development and investment banks, conducted banking activities in Turkey as of November.

The sector had 204,256 employees, serving through 11,435 branches both in Turkey and overseas.