Küresel rekabete ayak uydurmak ve sürdürülebilir olmak isteyen tüm şirketler ve kurumlar, değişimi doğru bir şekilde yönetmek, teknolojinin gerekli kıldığı zihinsel ve operasyonel dönüşümü kurumlarına hızlı bir şekilde adapte etmek zorundadırlar.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on 11 March, 2020. This is the highest level of health emergency in the global health regulations. The pandemic affected all the global aspects of life including social, political and economic interactions amongst humanity. Like any other sector involved in day-to-day economic activities, the financial sector had its own reaction to the external economic shock induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. The first objective of this study is to empirically investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the profitability and operational efficiency of conventional and participation banks in Turkey. The second objective of this study is to estimate the effect of the pandemic on the combined profitability and operational efficiency of the two categories together. Panel data with random effects was the main analysis methodology adopted by the study. The Turkish conventional banks examined by the study are Vakif Bank, Iş Bankasi, Ziraat Bankasi and Yapi Kredi and the participation banks are Kuwait Turk Bankasi, Albaraka, Turkiye Finans and Ziraat Katilim. The data used for the analysis ranges from 2016 to 2020. The results indicate that the pandemic had no effect on the profitability of the Turkish conventional banks but had a positive impact on the participation banks’ profitability. The results also suggest the pandemic had a negative impact on the operational efficiency of both conventional and participation banks. Moreover, for the combined analysis, the results could not establish any impact of the pandemic on the profitability of the two groups of banks in aggregate. However, the results of the study show negative impact of the pandemic on the combined efficiency of both sets of banks.