The shares of Turkey's state-owned Halkbank and VakıfBank show a positive divergence compared to the banking index and, while the premium of the banking index stood at 2.8 percent in the last month, Halkbank and VakıfBank reached 7.9 percent and 5.8 percent, respectively. It is noteworthy that the expectations towards public banks are quite positive, while there is no strong news flow that will lead to positive divergence in the public banking sector. A report written by HSBC analysts on May 22 noted that public banks are preferred to private banks, while VakıfBank and Halkbank have shown the best profit growth dynamics among other banks. With more than 900 branches throughout Turkey, 25.18 percent of Vakıfbank's shares are open to the public. According to non-consolidated financial results, VakıfBank achieved a net profit of TL 1.2 billion ($.34 billion) in the first quarter of 2017. Maintaining its steady growth, the bank's asset size exceeded TL 221 billion ($61.79 billion) with an increase of 16 percent on an annual basis and its cash loans increased by 23 percent to over TL 153 billion ($42.77 billion), while the bank's total deposits reached TL 13 billion ($3.63 billion) with a growth rate of 13 percent. Halkbank, on the other hand, has more than 930 branches in Turkey as well as over 65 branches in Europe, and 48.93 percent of the bank's capital is open to the public. Halkbank, whose equity capital rose by 7 percent in the first quarter of 2017, reached TL 1.2 billion ($.34 billion) in net profit. The bank's total assets increased by 7.1 percent to TL 247.8 billion ($69.28 billion) compared to the end of 2016, while its total loans increased by 5.8 percent to TL 218.2 billion ($61 billion) in the same period.