By Chris Murphy

October 23rd, 2018

For customers of Turkey’s Yapı Kredi Bank, the dream of leaving the wallet at home and only packing a phone is now a real option.

Yapı Kredi has more than 5 million active customers on its mobile app and internet banking, and more than 90 percent of those customers’ transactions are done via mobile. They use phones to make payments at the cash register without a debit card. If they need cash, they can use a QR code from the mobile app to withdraw from a Yapı Kredi ATM. For online shopping, they can also pay via a QR code.

“As Digital Bank of Turkey, mobile is the heart of the digital channels for Yapı Kredi,” says Yapı Kredi Vice President Gülter Bedel. Mobile is also the center of Yapı Kredi’s innovation efforts. Most recently, the bank enabled mobile banking app access on both iOS and Android phones via eye-recognition software, which Bedel states was a first in Europe. “Your password is your eyes,” he says.

And if they need to contact a Yapı Kredi rep, they can call directly from the mobile app, or use the app without the security questions to find a branch and schedule an appointment. Customers do six times more transactions via mobile than they do through the bank’s more than 850 branches, the company says. By making innovation a strategic priority, Yapı Kredi Bank has become one of the 10 most valuable brands in Turkey, according to the annual Brand Finance rankings, with a “Dedicated to Deliver” motto and a customer-centric approach.

A Data-Driven Strategy

A mobile strategy like Yapı Kredi’s requires strong app design, of course, but data provides the real power. The bank’s mobile strategy is succeeding in large part because of big data analytics that includes monitoring customer actions to head off problems, spot new product opportunities, and data mining to better understand customers’ needs.

“Every customer click is an event, so we analyze it,” Bedel says. And so is every missed click. “If you apply for a loan but you give up halfway it’s an important event to take an action,” he says.

Yapı Kredi monitors and analyzes its data on