Yapi Kredi targets ‘branchless banking’ revolution in Turkey
Yapi Kredi is aiming to use branchless banking to connect with customers in remote areas such as Sanliurfa (pictured)
Turkish bank Yapi Kredi has partnered with mobile money specialist Monitise to develop branchless banking’ services in which the consumer can open an account and carry out all their transactions without the need for physical locations.
The new service, called Nuvo, is available on iOS and Android in Turkish and English. Nuvo includes aspects of personal financial management, free account transactions and money transfers and incentives such as the bank’s World Gold or Play Card loyalty programmes. Users will also gain shopping discounts.The bank estimates that it will have 300,000 customers in its first year and aims to hit one million active users within five years.
The decision to launch the service, called Nuvo, was based on Ernst&Young data from February that suggests the number of transactions made via smartphones will double in 2017, while mobile payment transaction volumes are estimated to quadruple in size to reach $1.3 trillion. Monitise has previously worked with Turkish Airlines, and was already in a commercial relationship with Yapi Kredi.
Turkey is no stranger to the rise of mobile banking services. Yapi Kredi was one of the early adopters of mobile operator Turkcell’s mobile wallet in the country, which has since been expanded to include Visa Europe and several other Turkish banks. Yapi Kredi’s solution for iPhone is called iCare, while the Turkcell wallet itself is also integrated Turkey’s public transport card Urfakart, meaning that customers on trains and buses in Turkey can pay using their phones.
Banking projects that aim to provide customers a service without the help of a traditional bank branch are not new in the country either. In January, Turkish bank Türkiye Finans Katılım Bankası began a project to roll out remote management technology at 145 sites across Turkey. Meanwhile in November, Kuveyt Türk Bank told Banking Technology about its plans to build a new generation of ATMs, branded as ‘XTMs’ – X for eXtreme – which it is using to reach more remote areas of the country such as mountain village communities near Gumushane, about 100 kilometres south of Trabzon, on the Black Sea Coast.
Founded in 1944, Yapi Kredi is a private bank that has approximately 10 million customers and £41.5 billion in assets under management. The bank is part-owned by the UniCredit Group.
