BURSA, Turkey, April 29 (Reuters) - Turkish banks are strongly capitalised and succeeded in stress tests, the country's banking regulator BDDK said on Wednesday, indicating the banks are resilient to future shocks.
The BDDK has been applying tests on Turkey's banks, which in previous years have attracted huge levels of foreign interest, for the last eight months and found no toxic assets in the banks, BDDK chief Tevfik Bilgin said.
Turkish banks have some of the strongest capitalisation levels and loan-to-deposit ratios in the world, and strict regulation has spared them exposure to risky assets.
"Turkish banks' capital adequacy ratios are now 18.5 percent, and there is no bank with a ratio below 13 percent," Bilgin told a conference.
Bilgin said a possible jump in non-performing loans due to the economic crisis would not threaten banks, and their capital adequacy ratios would stay above international standards.
"When we apply the stress tests, the banks' capital adequacy ratios fall to 8 percent, even if their non-performing loans rise to 19 percent from 4.4 percent now," Bilgin said.
Turkish banking stocks jumped 4.89 percent at 1241 GMT on Wednesday. (Reporting by Ceyda Caglayan, editing by Will Waterman)