Turkish banks are known across Europe for their advances in digital banking. This is often attributed to a relative lack of legacy IT infrastructure, but it’s also due to early investments in digital banking, as well as factors such as a younger retail base in the home market.
This year, Isbank stood out and is central and eastern Europe’s best digital bank. Isbank’s app, IsCep, allows customers to categorize expenses in a way that gives them exceptionally rich insights into their spending habits. Customers can set a maximum spending limit on their credit card, apply it to a category of their choice and they are informed when they come close to these limits or exceed them. They receive weekly reports of their spending, including an analysis of changes.
Other new features on IsCep include the ability for customers to gain access to their accounts through ID scanning and facial recognition. It also introduced point of sale payments; allowed users to load money onto public transport cards; and allowed them to send and request money using QR codes, facilitating instant money transfers at any time of day.
Other digital innovations by Isbank include the launch of payments by instalment; a Digital Safe, allowing customers to store photographs, video and audio files, passwords, phone contacts, and other digital information; and IsCep Market, a platform helping third-party digital providers reach Isbank’s customer base.
Isbank, led by chief executive is Hakan Aran, says its customers’ usage of IsCep rose to 65% by the end of 2021, up from under 50% three years earlier. Its proportion of general purpose consumer loans extended by digital channels rose to 91% and its share of time deposit accounts opened through digital means reached 85%.
