our intellectual
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As a part of the banking system that pioneers the informatics world in an era where technological developments change lifestyles, we continue to develop applications that focus on digitalization.

Among the concepts that come into our lives through the digital era, we prioritize big data, artificial intelligence, data analytics, cybersecurity, open banking, and robot software. We continue to shape the future of digital banking through new ways of doing business, applications, and technologies that come with digital transformation. In addition to expanding the uninterrupted service we provide to our customers with the steps we take, we also strengthen our competitive power in the sector by increasing our operational efficiency.

The world of finance is trying to enter a new digital dimension. As VakıfBank we are pioneering the era. We are mobilizing our digital maturity to improve the customer experience. We are constantly striving for change and development with our digital capacity, digital intelligence, and knowledge. We are making a difference in the industry with the technologies we have developed, taking the needs of our customers to our center.

In 2021, we completed the development of VakıfBank innovation “Vinov,” a product that will bring a new understanding to the sector in terms of cash management products, which we describe as “The Next Banking.” Through Vinov, we offer a digital end-to-end payment management service that appeals to all retail and commercial customers, offers a VakıfBank guarantee in deferred payments, and is available 24/7 for all retail and commercial banking customers. Also, with the Vinov Business feature, we are creating an innovative banking ecosystem that offers collection methods.

In the race for digitalization, we are driven to lead the industry in terms of products and services offered to commercial customers. We think that digitalization and open banking will transform the banking sector as an inseparable duo. In this context, we created special experiences for our commercial customers with the new products and services we offered in 2021. The foremost among them is our All Account, SME Digital Loans Platform, and Private Company Remote Customer Acquisition projects.

With VakıfBank All Account, our new digital banking product offered within the scope of open banking, we made it possible for businesses to view their account information and activities at other banks, of which they are customers, via VakıfBank Mobile and Internet Banking, without having to enter each bank’s digital channels separately. Thus, we aim to make our customers’ business processes more efficient, easier, and streamlined.

We provide our customers with the best banking practices in Turkey and the world while developing practices that will be pioneering in the industry, as a bank that places great value on technology creation in addition to our existing banking services and products.

We continue our development efforts to provide VakıfBank users with the best mobile experience. We provide the best mobile application experience to our users by expanding their comfort area by providing simple language, a secure application, easy installation, and a user-friendly design. With NFC, Facial Recognition, and OCR technologies, we allow our customers to easily perform their transactions without going to the branch and calling the call center. We have become the first bank to perform identity reading with NFC via mobile application. We moved transactions like increasing the money transfer limit, obtaining a password, changing account transaction type, and activation, which are among the most frequently performed transactions through branches and call centers, to VakıfBank Mobile. We have quickly and securely activated the remote customer application and made approximately 74 thousand people our Bank’s customers through a completely remote process from the beginning of May to the end of the year 2021. During this period, we acquired 1.2 million new digital customers, increasing the total number of our digital banking customers to over 9 million. By the end of 2021, we increased throughput through digital channels by 36% compared to the previous period.

With our “Digital facilitates” approach, we produce solutions that meet our customers’ demands and expectations. We increase the number of our products and services day by day. Through this approach, we supported the execution of secure trade even faster and more effectively with our VBanko Cheque Digital solution, which combines the trust of a letter of guarantee with the ease of circulation of a cheque. We have guaranteed more than the amount of legal liability with VBanko Cheque Digital. Even if the person receiving the cheque is not a VakıfBank customer, s/he can instantly query the guarantee amount and the validity date by scanning the cheque code on the VakıfBank Mobile application.

Those who are VakıfBank customers may easily perform banking transactions with the artificial intelligence-based digital assistant ViBi, one of the most innovative services of our Bank. Currently being used by more than 5.1 million people, ViBi continues to provide support for nearly 400 banking transactions. The total interaction of ViBi, which provides speed and convenience for customers, is about 45.5 million. ViBi is able to successfully answer over 5,000 questions with a 94% success rate. It can perform many banking transactions such as money transfer, loan application, money withdrawal and deposit using QR codes, cash advance, limit determination, and learning up-to-date exchange rate information.

We are aware that the services we provide through digitalization also reduce our customers’ carbon footprint and indirectly contribute to the combat against climate change. In addition, we believe that the digital migration of customers will accelerate and alternative distribution channels will be used more actively. Therefore, in 2021, we will further increase our speed and efficiency with our technological infrastructure, products, and applications and lead innovation and break ground in this field.

We continue to offer our customers easy, safe, attractive, and innovative solutions and services by continuously improving our technological strength and capabilities. We are forging ahead with the vision of becoming an entrepreneurial technology organization that constantly increases the value it adds by innovatively transforming financial services through modern banking software and strong technological infrastructure.

We are a pioneering bank in the sector, which encodes and develops its own banking software with its own resources. With our qualified human resources and innovative vision in this field, we closely follow the developments in information technologies and offer products and services leading and making a difference in the sector.

As a bank that performs millions of banking transactions every day, we know that today’s most valuable asset of institutions is “data.” Within the framework of our emphasis on data analytics, data security, and data management, we carefully monitor and implement developments for using data accurately and effectively, and increasing data quality.

Data analytics creates a competitive advantage in critical issues such as efficiency, profitability, and sustainability by enabling businesses to make faster and more accurate decisions in a rapidly changing and developing world. We continue our studies on data analytics and investments incompetent human resources in this field with this perspective. In line with our goal of generating value from data, we improve our analytical processes and our talented human resources skills. We are expanding our data sources within the scope of studies on data infrastructure. We constantly renew our ability to access and analyze data with up-to-date technologies. We are developing new business intelligence tools through which our units can easily create their reports to further expand and facilitate the use of data in decision-making processes. We are increasing our labor productivity by increasing the spread of robotic automation through banking processes and all manual operational activities. By doing repetitive tasks with the same rules as the robotic automation product, we both save labor and minimize the risk of faulty operations through our robots. We are also rapidly continuing to develop data analytics, artificial intelligence, remote client acquisition, audio and facial recognition, and open banking, especially in Basic Banking and digital channels. In the upcoming period, we regard promoting the use of robotic process automation and artificial intelligence, developing hyper-automation models as one of our main strategies.

In the project development process, we are following an agile approach to further our agility and productivity. In this period, we have reorganized our Information Technology power with agile teams. We aim for continuous improvement based on the experience-embracing approach of agile transformation. We treat agility as a way of doing business that prioritizes the needs of our customers and ensures coordination with all our stakeholders.

To reduce operational burdens and transaction risks in our branches and Headquarters units, we are operating to bring our processes to digital environments and centralize operational transactions.

In this period, we have designed V-Coach, a screen experience that learns and teaches based on artificial intelligence to help our employees get the training they need when they need it. We created an artificial intelligence model, taking into account criteria such as the mistakes made by the user and the time spent on VIT Screens, the main banking software of our bank. With the model output, we provided the user with a screen-specific training assignment in cases when necessary. Thus, by increasing the on-screen competencies of the users, we increased the internal customer experience and satisfaction; we have facilitated understanding and prevented operational errors by saving time and costs. With our app launched under the name “V-Coach,” we won the third prize in the “Future of Work” category of the IDC Awards.

Our VakıfBank R&D Center V-LAB, which operates in alignment with our strategies and our values of “innovation” and “being a pioneering bank,” we continue to develop ideas and collaborate in many areas such as artificial intelligence, data mining, customer experience, and payment systems in 2021. In 2021, we continued the Open Innovation Center studies through innovation-focused MeetUp Seminars in our R&D Center, through collaborative work with Design Thinking Workshops and universities.

In addition, during this period, we brought together young programmers, developers, and designers with the “Hack to the Future” contest, held for the second time. This year, we organized our event online, from March 19 to March 21, with the concept of “Direct the Future of Digital Finance.” The 84 participants were competing in a hackathon, where young people were able to demonstrate their digital skills. We evaluated the presentations of the 10 finalists out of 32 teams based on team competence, originality, innovative technology, business model, design, commercialization/scaling, presentation, feasibility, social benefit, and prototype criteria. We presented our awards in the categories of “Best Minimum Viable Product,” “Best Social Enterprise,” “Most Innovative Technological Solution,” “Best User Experience Design” and “Most Global Solution.” We will continue with the organization of this event, which we consider one of our social responsibilities, in the upcoming periods.

With our vision of becoming the Leading Bank of a Strong Turkey, we continue to offer our customer-oriented and innovative products. Simultaneously, we are aware that banking applications’ digital transformation brings risks too. Therefore, cyber-attack risks, security of all kinds of data, and personal data protection are essential topics. We continually improve ourselves in these areas and continue our efforts to create a safer banking experience day by day. Our work in this area not only enhances our competitiveness in the industry but also contributes to increasing customer satisfaction and confidence in our Bank.

We effectively fight threats, considering factors such as regulations, digitalization, and increasing data volume. We create security strategies that align with our bank’s policy and support our way of doing business.

In an increasingly digitalized world, we constantly review our security controls and continuously improve our monitoring capability with new tools for the identification of vulnerabilities. To establish a modern Security Operation Center infrastructure, we revised our security incident management tool (SIEM) with a new product to support artificial intelligence algorithms. We have introduced new features for user behavior analytics and improved the visibility of all operations. In parallel with all these tools, we have completed our investment in the Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) solution. With this solution, we strive to automate alarm monitoring processes in the security area.

Especially in order to address the risks posed by suppliers, which is one of our most fundamental risks today, we use static and dynamic code review tools to ensure security for applications developed by supplier companies.

We also attach great importance to accessibility, one of the key topics of the pyramid of security, and we are working very hard to minimize disruptions. Running all our critical systems on active architecture is our primary goal. We also regularly validate this through regular emergency status plan tests every year.

Our most important goal in all business continuity activities is to protect the brand value and the corporate reputation. Especially, data leakage issues and interruptions have become more influential than ever before to the reputation and brand value of corporations. We adopt data-centric security approaches to manage these reputational risks.

With the pandemic, we race against time to prevent vulnerabilities that arise as a result of changing threats. We use vulnerability scanning tools to identify security vulnerabilities. We periodically scan all vulnerabilities weekly and automatically report them to relevant asset managers through the service management tool. When a critical vulnerability occurs, we take action as soon as possible. We are making a concerted effort to ensure that preventive patches, specifically for vulnerabilities, are rapidly applied to all assets.

In parallel with that, we have introduced a domestic cyber-threat intelligence solution this year to our Bank for faster and more efficient action. In line with relevant solutions and notifications from regulatory authorities, we perform the required rule identifications on our security tools.

We are constantly scanning threats daily with the attack simulation tool, which is another tool we use for detecting threats. With this product, we measure security maturity in cases of physical attacks from the outside world and ensure that the relevant results are reported to the senior management regularly.

We closely follow the regulations published by the regulatory authorities and perform the necessary compliance studies. We have largely completed the work required under the Regulation on Information Systems of Banks and Electronic Banking Services. We are working on compliance with the Information and Communication Security Guideline published by the Digital Transformation Office of the Presidency of Turkey, which is another important issue. In this regard, we create our risk asset inventory and take the necessary measures.

The other two important regulations were remote customer acquisition and digital banking regulations published by the BRSA. We took the necessary actions to comply with these regulations. We conduct agile processes, especially for compliance with new regulations. In this direction, we have successfully carried out audits such as Swift Customer Security Framework, GIB (Turkish Revenue Administration) Custom Integrator Audit. In parallel with all work, we have conducted ongoing audits concerning the ISO 27001 Information Security Management System and ISO 22301 Business Continuity Management System to ensure the continuity of relevant certifications.

The privacy of our customers is crucial to us. Regarding the Law on the Protection of Personal Data, we ensure that the necessary information is presented in all our channels as part of the disclosure obligation and that the required explicit consent is obtained. We have documented the Personal Data Processing Policy and other necessary processes. In this regard, we conduct the necessary work in all our channels within this scope to ensure our customers’ safety. We also provide informative training to our employees in line with the Law on the Protection of Personal Data. In 2021, 9,808 people completed the e-learning training that was prepared in this context. 43 of our employees attended the in-class training on the Law on the Protection of Personal Data.

With the increasing complexity and variability of digital transformation, we continue to strengthen our security systems to ensure information security and keep our defense against cyber-attacks at the highest level.

You can access our Bank’s Privacy Policy on our website at https://www.vakifbank.com.tr/Default.aspx?pageID=4005

In 2020, we achieved many applications focusing on digitalization and customer needs and adapted our production speed and infrastructure to new and changing needs.

• According to the determined rulesets for the application to become a customer through the mobile channel, we provided digital customer acquisition through courier flow, branch routing, face recognition checks, vitality tests, and video call center calls. We used NFC authentication in this application and created the video interview infrastructure.
• We have established the Video Call Center infrastructure and initiated the call center service with sign language for our customers with disabilities.
• We changed the infrastructure of some shortcut menus in the Individual Mobile Application to provide a better customer experience, increase performance, enable the use of Android and IOS operating system capabilities, and increase functionality in the application.
• We renewed Retail Internet Banking with a completely new user experience and interface. So we have gained the ability to adapt quickly to new technologies and increased our opportunities for cross-product sales.
• We have carried out the front-end developments for Fintechs (open banking application developers) and customers who will be using VakıfBank accounts through third-party applications for the developing open banking platform. We prepared the Internet and branch screens for the execution of Open Banking authorization processes. Within this context, we developed 57 API services. We have developed login and authorization display web screens to make transactions through the open banking application.
• With VakıfBank All Account, our new digital banking product offered within the scope of open banking, we made it possible for businesses to view their account information and activities at other banks, of which they are customers, via VakıfBank Mobile and Internet Banking, without having to enter each bank’s digital channels separately.
• We enabled customers to access all types of contracts and receipts approved through digital channels via Mobile and Internet Banking channels (Approved Contracts/Documents).
• We have ensured that for our Natural Persons with Commercial Activities and our Commercial Customers, balances and account activity information of the accounts at another bank or e-money institution can be displayed through the VakıfBank Internet and Mobile Banking applications. In this context, we ensured integration with 8 banks in total.
• We have developed the Vinov product, a digital future payment system, which offers a VakıfBank guarantee for deferred and cash payments as an alternative to traditional methods (like cheques, promissory notes, open accounts) in the market, for Corporate Commercial, SME, and retail segment customers. Through Vinov, our customers will be able to create future payments with the guarantee of our Bank and be entitled to early payment and transfer. All these transactions are to be made through Mobile, Internet Banking, and branches.
• We have introduced the product named Click Card to our customers. Our customers whose Click Card applications made through Mobile Banking, Internet Banking, or the Branch have been approved, may complete their shopping over the Internet and contactless POS machines by accessing their card details via Mobile Banking and Internet Banking channels without the need to wait for physical card delivery. With this product, we have enabled our customers to make instant Mobile Contactless payments with the identification to be made on Android phones or to use their cards instantly via their mobile phones with QR payment.
• Excluding card printing and password/authorization transactions, we have moved all prepaid card infrastructure at Banksoft to VakıfBank VIT’s basic banking infrastructure. We developed screens on the VIT web framework within which organizations can carry out their own operational transactions.
• We ensured real-time reconciliation of money transfers using FAST, taking into account the input time, the system’s ability to deliver services 24x7 and to carry out FAST with Easy Address.
• We ensured that gold buying/selling transactions can be performed based on the ounce unit at the Branches as well as through Mobile, and Internet Banking channels. We became the first bank to provide gold buying and selling services with the ounce unit.
• We offered silver buying and selling transactions in TRY and Foreign Currency to our customers via Branch, Mobile Banking, Internet Banking, and Call Center channels.
• We have established the infrastructure for issuing offers and policies to customers who are not customers of our Bank (those with no customer number) for DASK (Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool), Mortgage, Automobile Insurance, Compulsory Traffic Insurance, Complementary Health Insurance, and Travel Health Insurance (for the completion of the sales process after one is made a customer of the Bank) through our Bank’s website as per market competition.
• We have established the integration of INVEX and E-Invoice to facilitate tracking of the invoice amounts for the appraisals conducted for the real estate and loan and/or follow-up customers of our Bank.
• In the Mobile Field Sales channel, we have cross-checked Merchant Application, BES Sales, Credit Card/Supplementary Card Requests, and updated the Application Module accordingly.
• We are one of the most active stakeholders of the E-Municipality system and have completed our preparations to support all municipalities.
• We offered companies the opportunity to make their payments quickly and easily every hour of the week by integrating the Collective Payment System (CPS) with the Fast And Secure Transfers (FAST) application. Companies that benefit from the CPS/FAST integration of our bank can transfer funds to different bank customers on a 24/7 basis by centralizing their distributed resources.
• We added the Hash Code (single encryption control) feature in addition to the existing system controls (Branch/Institution Approval, ID No/TRIN, and Name Last Name) in our offline CPS structure.
• With our digital and paperless banking applications, we implemented digital validation of customer instructions with mobile signatures to increase speed and accessibility, increase operational efficiency and reduce transaction risk.
• In addition to our Physical Archive Center (PAC) in Manisa, we have also opened a new physical archive center in Izmit/Dilovası to help relieve the burden of keeping archives at our branches.
• We have integrated Swift GPI “Inbound Tracking” into the main banking screens so that we are aware of future payments incoming to our customers in advance.