Turkey's state-owned lender, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Ziraat Bankası (Ziraat Bank), saw a profit surge of 13 percent in the third quarter compared to the same period of 2014, the bank said in a statement late on Wednesday. The bank earned a profit of TL 1.152 billion ($402 million), up from TL 1.02 billion in the third quarter of last year. Ziraat Bank CEO Hüseyin Aydın said in the statement that the bank's loan book increased 25 percent, reaching TL 239 billion from September last year to September 2015. Ziraat Bank, Turkey's largest lender, employs more than 20,000 people at 1,776 branches and has 96 branches in 18 foreign countries, including Germany, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kazakhstan, Russia, the U.K., the United States, Georgia, Bulgaria and Azerbaijan. The bank's profit increased 18 percent to nearly TL 3.6 billion ($1.25 billion) during the January to September period. Aydın also said the bank's project finance activities have reached $6 billion. Additionally, Ziraat Bank is the second biggest Turkish bank after Garanti Bankası since 2012 according theBankscope database measured by total assets in USD.