GARANTİ ÖDEME SİSTEMLERİ

A distinct difference between the Turkish card market and other European markets is its holistic view of issuing and acquiring. Successful banks in Turkey combine issuing and acquiring businesses to avoid losing transactions. A transaction only takes place if the merchant and cardholder agree. By placing issuing and acquiring together, banks can provide customer relationship management (CRM) services to smaller merchants that cannot afford to invest in their own CRM systems. This means that banks have only one customer file, which gives the sales team more comprehensive view of the clients' activity. Such a holistic approach provides superior results for banks and merchants in terms of straight-through processing (STP).

Turkey's Card Innovations in the Banking Sector

Turkey, like many countries, is far from being a cashless society and, while the general number of bank cards in circulation has increased, the demand for contactless payment options in the country has also risen in recent years.

In order to enable as many consumers as possible to use contactless cards, agreements were signed with many fast food outlets and coffee shops around the country to enable consumers to pay this way. Garanti Payment Systems (GPS) was the first issuer of contactless PayPass cards from MasterCard, which were then extended to the bank's existing BONUS Trink cardholders, a loyalty scheme that soon established itself as the basis loyalty card schemes not just for banks but also retailers in Turkey following its introduction in 2006.

Constant innovation is a key factor for success in the card sector and, looking ahead to the coming months, the Turkish banking market will see the emergence of bank cards that combine debit, prepaid and contactless functionalities. This will allow consumers to pay for low-value items as well as their travel passes in regions that have signed up for the scheme.

In particular, Turkey's younger generation is shaping the contactless card market with its requirements and needs. With credit cards having already deeply penetrated daily life, younger people have happily adopted contactless cards to pay for low-value items. As this demographic is far more technology- savvy, it is far more willing to use contactless cards. What's more, in a world where personalization and customer loyalty is becoming crucial, Turkey spearheaded CRM for credit cards with the launch of GPS' Flexi card. What is new about this card is that it allows cardholders to create a personalized card with its own interest rate, reward system, card fee and design. In addition, loyalty points are awarded based on the frequency of use of the card, rather than income, and there is no expiration date for the extra points. Flexi is the first credit card globally that involves the customer in the process of the creation of the card, thereby establishing greater customer loyalty by giving them more control over their credit cards. With the introduction of the loyalty schemes in Turkey, local banks have realized that these are crucial for the existence of the market and play an important role in the penetration of card usage.

Moreover, Turkey has some of the most powerful loyalty programs which Garanti bank was launched the first in the market 11 years ago. "Bonus Card Turkey's first chip and emv structured credit card". These loyalty systems offer rewards based on frequency of use. They have merged credit card benefits with a shopping card, offering cashback rewards instead of points.

In the last 11 years alone, the Turkish market has risen from 10 million cards to 45 million.