Turkey's banking sector registered a net profit of TL 27.3 billion ($4 billion) by the end of May, the country's banking watchdog announced Monday.

Total assets of the sector hit TL 5.3 trillion ($776.4 billion), up 24% from the same period last year, a report by the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BRSA) said.

Loans, the biggest sub-category of assets, surged 24% year-on-year to TL 3.1 trillion ($464.7 billion) in the five-month period.

On the liabilities side, deposits held at lenders in Turkey – the largest liabilities item – totaled nearly TL 3 trillion ($437.4 billion), up 31% on an annual basis.

The US dollar to Turkish lira exchange rate was around 6.80 as of May end, versus around 5.93 at the end of last May.

Pointing to lenders' minimum capital requirements, the banking sector's regulatory capital-to-risk-weighted-assets ratio – the higher the better – was 19.44% by the end of the month, while it was 17.07% in the same period of the previous year.

The ratio of non-performing loans to total cash loans – the lower the better – stood at 4.54% in the same period, versus 4.18% a year ago.

As of May end, a total of 51 state/private/foreign lenders – including deposit banks, participation banks and development and investment banks – operated in the Turkish banking sector.

The sector had 203,797 employees serving through 11,333 branches both in Turkey and overseas with 49,392 ATMs.