Derivative instruments and applications in the Turkish banking sector

Due to financial markets which have been more global day by day, world countries have created a financial world. Currency transfers have occured immediately thanks to improving Technologies and financial sector. Therefore, lots of currencies have moved all over the world everyday. Because of this reason, investors have needed a guarantee in case lots of types againts sudden fluctuations which may be occured according to demand and supply in financial markets. For this purpose, products have become a tool which provides to investors to protect them with various ways. Also, derivative products have decreased uncertainities about future, so investors have shown an interest in this market and products more.The purpose of this study is analyzing about investigating banks, which are the biggest firms of financial sector in Turkey and on which derivative products they have been focused. In conceptual framework which is constituted for this purpose, at first derivative products (which are forward, futures, options and swap) were explained. In the second part of the study, it was given a general information about Turkish Banking Sector and risks as well as the type of the risks were explained in detail. In the third part of the study, first ten banks according to the size of assets for the years 2011 and 2012 were included to the analysis. The cause of the exploration of the first ten banks is that these banks have enough to give information for general view about the market, these banks hold a place approximately 84 per cent of banking sector considering 2012 year-end. In the analysis, it was given which derivative products have used most and how much derivative products have trading volume as turkish lira and foreign currency. The datas which were obtained via this analysis were explored relatively in 2011 and 2012 terms and the part of the result and suggestions was occured. Keywords: Financial Markets, Derivative Markets, Derivative Products