Former TBI president Hussein Al-Uzri fled Iraq in June after a committee including officials from the anti-corruption commission and audit authority reported financial irregularities at the bank.
The scandal cast a shadow over the TBI, which foreign investors regarded as a success story in a country recovering from years of economic sanctions and war following the US invasion in 2003.
Uzri said allegations were fabricated and called himself the victim of a power grab by allies of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, who ordered a judicial inquiry into the scandal.
New TBI President Hamdiya Al-Jaf said the bank has recovered around $400 million by convincing customers in default to restart payments or agree settlements or by taking court action.
"They were loans which were given but with no guarantees or weak guarantees," Jaf told Reuters in an interview.
"We are continuously working to recover the rest of the defaulted sums."
"There was misuse of authority, misuse of the money in the bank," Jaf said.
TBI has developed into one of Iraq's largest and most profitable financial institutions after it was established after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
It is involved in financing purchases for the food ration program and securing private financing for power and other reconstruction projects.
J.P. Morgan Chase and Citibank are among its partner banks.
Jaf said net profit in the 10 months to the end of October was $373 million compared with $361 million for the whole of 2010. She expects profit to reach $375 million by year end.
Letters of credit with the bank jumped to 588 this year from 215 last year.
TBI is preparing to open other letters of credit for Italian and German companies, including Italy's Saipem which won a $471.7 million contract for an oil export facility expansion and sub-sea pipeline in southern Iraq.
TBI also plans a letter of credit for German construction and engineering company Bauer which has signed a letter of understanding on a 1.9 billion-euro ($2.6 billion) contract, its biggest ever, to refurbish a dam in northern Iraq.
TBI will contribute 31.5 percent of financing to a $7.3 billion housing project to build 100,000 apartments won by Korea's Hanwha Engineering & Construction. The rest will be financed by the state-run Rafidain and Rashid banks.
Jaf said TBI had lowered interest rates on loans to 10 percent from as high as 14 percent.
TBI is planning to open its first foreign branch in Beirut, to be followed by another in Turkey, Jaf said.
TBI has 14 branches across Iraq and aims to add four more to cover all of Iraq's 18 provinces, as well as Islamic banking services in four provinces, which could be done in this year or next year, Jaf said.
