The relationship between branching and asset size in the Turkish banking sector - The sample of Vakıfbank

The first thing that comes to mind with the word bank is a bank branch with the phrase "bank" on it. Undoubtedly, the biggest reason for this is that the first-place people interact with banks is the bank branch and the people who serve in it. The subject of this research is whether the change in the number of branches of a bank, which has reached a sufficient number of branches to touch its customers willing to receive service, has a direct effect on the share that will receive from the sector. In other words, it is sought that the answer of the question whether more branches mean more size of assets. The emphasis is on total assets, loans, deposits and profits, which are the prominent items in the banking jargon in terms of size. In our study, a comprehensive analysis was made in terms of the Turkish banking sector. Despite the fact that the share of the number of branches and employees in the sector has not increased in recent years, our subject is being examined in the case of Vakifbank, which has become the 2nd largest bank in Turkey in terms of size of assets by the end of 2020 and still maintains this success. With the predominant effect of the 21st century being the digital age, Vakifbank, which has enough branches to receive service from, has been able to continuously improve its size of assets share in the sector without increasing its share in the number of branches and employees. As a result, although there is a relationship between the number of branches and employees with size of assets, it has been concluded that this relationship is not one-to-one and other than the number of branches and employees some other factors also affect the asset size item.