Halkbank is a Turkish bank, first incorporated in 1933 as a state-owned bank. After growing throughout much of the twentieth century, it began absorbing smaller-sized state banks around the turn of the millennium. Halkbank is now a publicly traded company, although the majority stakeholder remains the Turkish government. Halkbank was incorporated in 1933 and began offering services 1938. Between 1938 and 1950, it was a credit union whose purpose was to provide tradesmen and artisans loans on favourable terms in order to promote economic growth in Turkey. In 1950, it began opening branches and granting loans to customers.