GARANTI BBVA MANAGEMENT

Leveraging advanced data analytics and AI

Banks started many years ago to analyze their customers with traditional data and to set their marketing and risk strategies by creating customer profiles. Nowadays, with digital transformation and developing technologies, data can be obtained, stored and most importantly processed at every point where the customer interacts with the bank.

Today, artificial intelligence and machine learning are integrated into all kinds of business processes, so that customers can have smarter, differentiated and personalized experiences. We know our customers better with over 500 machine learning models, we can offer right services and products on the right channel, at the right time. We automated our credit lending processes with our application and behavior models. Thanks to our models, we can detect and prevent fraudulent transactions. We can identify new places for ATM or Branch locations that will increase our customers' satisfaction. We follow social media with our artificial intelligence models, ingest and categorize interactions about us. In order to provide the best service in branches, we do segmentation studies and minimize unwanted waiting times.

Another use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in banking is cost saving. Chat bots, virtual assistants, automation of repetitive jobs, and the introduction of robots, give people the opportunity to focus on tasks that create value.

While the digitalization and data collected from the customer are increasing rapidly, the security of this information is of great importance. Cyber criminals also develop their competencies in parallel with technology, and more complex crime mechanisms appear. Accordingly, cyber security will continue to be a prominent issue in the next 10 years. We will continue to keep our security at the highest level by taking advantage of artificial intelligence.

As Garanti BBVA, we invest into new technologies to manage risks in the best way in a cyber-world that does not have borders. We continuously assess our risk levels and develop capabilities to monitor and overcome threats.

In addition to developing best in class technology; business continuity, compliance to regulations, certification and standards have the highest priority on our agenda. In order to contribute to our country’s cybersecurity initiatives as Garanti BBVA, we also work in close cooperation with our regulators (BDDK and BTK), our national level cyber security team (SOME), and TÜBİSAD.

Fostering the entrepreneurial ecosystem, access to finance, and active participation of women in employment and economic life.

The next decade will be a period where businesses will give priority to inclusive works and transforming to net-zero emissions for the sustainable development of Turkish economy and innovation will gain further importance. Within this context, we think that supporting SMEs is very important and will be even more significant. Because SMEs are the building blocks of the economy and their activities play a major role in determining the success of our country’s progress on Sustainable Development Goals. 

Therefore, support programs and collaborations to ease access to finance and to help them adopt eco-friendly, sustainable business models will be among the key progress areas of the sector in the future as well. 

Moreover, Turkey is open to innovation and its adaptation speed is very fast. This is particularly useful for the entrepreneurship ecosystem, which includes start-ups.

Turkey ranks 37th in the 2018 Global Entrepreneurship Index. But it also has the potential to go higher up. 

We witness the evolution 'Entrepreneurship' is going through and aim to unlock this potential. We create environments where entrepreneurs can bring their ideas to life, develop them and adapt to the new world. 

On the other hand, as Garanti BBVA, we predicted the rising importance of women entrepreneurs in the economy 13 years ago and became the first bank in Turkey that has been addressing Gender Equality, one of the Sustainable Development Goals. We see that the rate of women entrepreneurship, which was 5 percent in the early 2000s, reached up to 10 percent as of today. This also shows that we have a long way to go. 

As Garanti BBVA, we are adopting a holistic approach in line with the ongoing expectations. In the next decade, we believe resource efficiency including the use of solar power technologies will be a survival issue for SMEs; as their customers, especially in the EU, are increasingly demanding for higher environmental performance. In this regard, in addition to increasing the number of women entrepreneurs, increasing SMEs’ capacity to keep pace with the rapidly changing market demands will become much more important. 

I am glad and proud to share that we will continue the hard work to lift the 10 percent rate of women entrepreneurship even higher and help Turkish economy to align with the 1.5 Degree pathway. 

The future of payment systems and analytics based smart solutions

Shopping experience is changing due to mega trends such as smart phones, online stores or data driven offers. Hence, the way that we pay has to also change in a fast pace. Our purpose at Garanti BBVA is bringing the age of opportunities to everyone, and this continuous transformation in shopping and payment experience provides us the right environment to fulfill this purpose. As Garanti Payment Systems, we have been at the forefront of payments innovation to deliver the best customer experience while contributing to the financial health of our customers. To give you a few examples, that are all firsts to Turkish market; our GarantiPay enables safer e-commerce payments by eliminating the need to share card information, our BonusFlaş application offers hundreds of machine learning driven personalized shopping campaigns, or our employees can pay with face ID in our technology campus. Merchants in our Bonus network can now launch campaigns to their customer base using our online platforms which provides them the smart -data driven- logic around who to target, what to offer and how to measure the results. Going forward, I believe the future of payments will continue to be heavily shaped by data, digital and mobile, as well as internet of things. Payments will continue to become more convenient, safer, invisible and borderless. Through our flagship card brand, Bonus, that is in the pockets of one of every 3 customers in Turkey, we will continue to innovate and bring the age of opportunity to everyone.

Responsible banking approach, financial health and inclusion.

The finance sector has a significant and powerful impact on shaping the economic activities that will create common prosperity, on building the future, designing environmental and social transformation for current and future generations, and raising public awareness to this end.

With this sense of responsibility, we, as more than 18 thousand Garanti BBVA employees, are aiming to provide an excellent customer experience every day to our 18 million customers by embedding our “transparent, clear and responsible” banking principles at the center of our services.

As the emerging technologies, the climate crisis and the changing world rapidly transform customer expectations, they also drive the banking sector to constantly renew itself.

Looking ahead to the next decade, we anticipate technological revolutions to continue at an increasing pace and climate change to further become a defining issue of all economic activities and the banking sector to keep pace with these developments. We expect data, analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence and automation as well as eco-efficient choices such as electric cars and green homes with lower costs to gain further importance and consequently enable our customers to make right and healthy financial decisions.

That is why it is key to establish the balance between providing empathic but also instant experience. As Garanti BBVA, for this purpose, we make it our goal to adapt to evolving market conditions in a swift and agile manner: aiming to make new collaborations in order to create new business models and channels, and to maintain our human and planet-centric approach.

At tomorrow’s Garanti BBVA, as technology, innovations, sustainability and opportunities that will make our customers' lives easier continue to be an effective part of our customer experience, the most important guarantors of our success will be our employees who enable us to establish long-term, deep and emotional bonds with our customers.

Digital transformation and Do-It-Yourself trends

Digital transformation is a major shift that needs to be internalized in the strategies, products and services, customer experience and most importantly, in the culture of organizations. I believe there are three important aspects of a successful digital transformation: big data and artificial intelligence, user experience and information security.

Big data and artificial intelligence are among the key trends and they will remain so for the foreseeable future. With the advancement of technology and increased use of digital products and services, data has become more valuable than ever. Today, the ability to process large amounts of data and utilize advanced models and artificial intelligence to provide personalized experiences is an important factor that differentiates organizations in the eyes of customers. Our customers expect us to offer advice not only for their financial needs, but also for their personal lives and needs. Using the latest technology, we aim to offer our customers suggestions that go beyond product recommendations and improve their financial health.

The needs and expectations of customers are changing rapidly with the advancement of technology. Customers compare us not only with other banks, but also with trending apps with simple interfaces and great user experience, such as Spotify and Netflix. Therefore, the expectation in terms of user experience is increasing every day. Today, we offer more than 99% of our services through our digital channels, but beyond numbers, our main objective is to improve user experience on a continuous basis.

The third point I want to talk about is information security. Establishing trust is one of our most important tasks and to this end, we have a structure that works very well within the company. We effectively manage data security and privacy of personal information, and protect both our systems and users at the highest level.

We talk about concepts such as digital transformation, mega trends and artificial intelligence, but people are at the center of all these. Therefore, even if technology trends change, putting people at the center of digital transformation will continue to be the most important element of our efforts.

Future of work and creating an ecosystem to capture opportunities

Our greatest asset is our people.

By understanding the critical components of our bank's purpose and strategy, our main aim is to attract the best talent, develop them and create the working environment that enable them to perform their best.

Our role in the Talent and Culture area is to correctly match each of our strategic priorities with the right talent, that can achieve them.

Given the digital developments in the recent years, our customers’ expectations from banks are also evolving. This also changes our way of doing things and our strategic priorities.

Therefore, the key to success is exploring new and emerging skills crucial for future success, and attracting talent with those skills. In an environment where change is gaining such speed, our most important focus will be continuous reskilling and upskilling of our talent base and offering them the capabilities and tools of the new century.

Today and over the next decade, we will achieve the greatest differentiation through our talent. We believe that creating a talent pool of bankers that are competent and think big, who are also respectful and responsible to society, is an essential part of our business model.

One of our primary priorities is to adopt progressive business models and create an organization that is flexible and can respond to changing strategic priorities. The key to achieve this is a business model that develops products / services by putting its customers at the center, empowers teams and foster an entrepreneurial spirit.

We will continue to follow closely and put into practice these models that will transform the next 10 years.

Our greatest value will continue to be our people in the future of Garanti BBVA.