Turkey’s most extensive fintech ecosystem

Aktif Bank, Türkiye’s largest privately-held investment bank, continues to serve as the most extensive fintech ecosystem of Türkiye, thanks to its innovative business models and technology investments that redefine investment banking. Guided by its customer-oriented approach, Aktif Bank, together with its fintech ventures and business partners, provides 360-degree services to around 16 million customers across more than 10 lines of business, from banking products to insurance, transportation card solutions to payment systems, and technology to entertainment and sport event ticketing. Its 15 branches across Türkiye primarily focus on corporate banking, investment banking, and private banking services.

 

The Bank offers a branchless and seamless end-to-end banking experience to retail customers via its digital banking branch, N Kolay. The Bank aims to position N Kolay, which it continued to expand in 2023 with the addition of new products and services, as the leading, most popular, and most inclusive digital bank in Türkiye. Always by its users’ side for their financial needs, Aktif Bank’s digital bank N Kolay is increasing its brand awareness every day and is now installed on the smartphones of 4.5 million users. Aktif Bank also supports culture and arts through N Kolay. N Kolay was the naming sponsor of Harbiye concerts in 2023, and continued to contribute to the film, theater, and music festivals organized by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV).

Meanwhile, the Bank continues to offer convenient access to sporting and cultural events alike with its other key brand in digital, the Passo mobile application. Passo serves its customers with its application download count reaching 16 million. Inspired by global trends, Aktif Bank enriches Passo by analyzing users’ interests to provide a comprehensive experience, aiming to transform the application into a “lifestyle super app” which will soon be introduced to its customers. Continuing to expand public transportation and access control solutions in major cities in Türkiye and abroad, Aktif Bank’s subsidiary E-Kent continues to market its software and hardware solutions internationally as part of its strategy to enter the international market. With its expertise and experience, E-Kent also provides services in the entertainment and event industry under the Passo brand, maintaining its position as one of Türkiye’s leading ticketing platforms by collaborating with industry-leading organizers.

Aktif Bank continued to strengthen the financial technology ecosystem in 2023 with its pioneering subsidiaries. Aktif Ventures, acting as the “Next Generation Venture Architect”, continues to establish new fintech startups, provide financial support to entrepreneurs through venture capital investment funds, and engage in significant partnerships in API sharing.

Aktif Ventures ranked 1st among 15 institutions in the category of banks offering API portals with 565 APIs in 2023, with the launch of Apilion, Türkiye’s most robust API marketplace. Operating with an innovative approach to payment and ticketing system software, Aktif Tech offers high value-added software solutions and end-to-end operation services to its customers. Aktif Tech continues its operations with the goal of sharing its know-how and technology globally, primarily in the Balkans, Africa, and the Turkic Republics regions. The bank’s global subsidiary, UPT, continues to process money transfer transactions in 176 countries worldwide through its platform established with more than 180 global partners. UPT’s money transfer system is now used with the UPT brand in the physical and digital channels of more than 60 banks and payment institutions in 14 countries. UPTION, the mobile application of UPT, has reached 500,000 users as it continues to grow in Europe and Dubai. Aktif Bank’s subsidiary Aktif Asset Management, which provides innovative services with high-yield investment alternatives for both domestic and foreign customers, also continues its growth trend. Aktif Asset Management distinguishes itself from its competitors by increasing its portfolio size by 120% and the number of participants by 148% in 2023 with its innovative funds.

N Kolay Payment and Electronic Money Institution, which has the largest and most extensive network in its sector in Türkiye, continued to increase its member merchants with the PayNKolay brand and provide financial technology products in the POS area to commercial customers and SMEs in 2023. In 2023, with the PayNKolay brand, it tripled its member merchant count, and more than doubled its transaction volume. As a fintech company offering end-to-end next-generation payment and collection solutions to all types of businesses, PAVO demonstrated its engineering prowess once again by becoming the first operator to receive external sales integration approval from the Revenue Administration in 2023. In 2023, PAVO managed to increase its POS count fivefold, reflecting its product and service differentiation in the field. EchoPOS, an integrated cash register solution provider working with leading retail chains in Türkiye, made its software, which was previously only compatible with the Windows operating system, work independently on all platforms. EchoPOS became capable of providing infrastructure for over 5 million error-free daily transactions on average. Drawing attention with its technological solutions for the construction sector, Workindo expanded its operations in terms of products and countries in 2023, starting to serve internationally from Türkiye to India, Uzbekistan to Pakistan, and Egypt to Bangladesh with an international workforce service network and new contracting models.

Machinego, which addresses the issue of construction equipment fleet rental in the digital platform on a local and global scale, demonstrated its success in becoming Türkiye’s largest construction machinery marketplace as of 2023. Taking significant steps towards the digitalization of physical security, Aktif Bank’s subsidiary SECOM Türkiye established partnerships with the world’s largest technology firms to integrate advanced security technology from Japan into its systems.

 In 2023, Aktif Bank continued the “Women Active in the Economy” project aiming to increase financial inclusivity, contribute to sustainable development, and promote gender equality. The project, carried out in collaboration with Grameen Bank and Experian, aims to assist lowincome micro-entrepreneur women without any access to banking services utilize the financial system, grow their businesses, and make their income-generating activities sustainable. In its first two years, the project reached 3,100 women, and provided microcredit support of TRY 8,216,000. Aktif Bank’s accomplishments were reflected in the awards it received as well as its business results.

In 2023, the Bank was honored with approximately 210 awards from global and local platforms. In addition, Aktif Bank was included for the second time in the “Top 100 Brands of Türkiye” list by Brand Finance, the world’s leading independent brand valuation consultancy, in 2023. Among the listed brands, Aktif Bank saw the highest increase in value, with a 153% rise.