As the founder and the first practitioner of private banking in Turkey, Turk Ekonomi Bankası (TEB), also carries the ‘Consultant Bank’ approach which is an important part of its corporate identity, to its operations in the field of TEB Private Banking. TEB Retail and Private Banking Group Senior Assistant General Manager, Gökhan Mendi stated that as TEB Private Banking, they aimed to be the most preferred reference point for private banking and asset management.
Mendi emphasized that being awarded as “The Most Innovative Private Banking” by International Finance this year was a sign of great effort and dedication, and he added: “In line with our customers’ risk levels, needs and expectations, we develop solutions that add value to their assets, with our Private Banking Centers and Service Points in Branches across Turkey. As the founder and the first practitioner of private banking in Turkey, we offer long-term and value-added solutions to our customers in banking and financing transactions, with the help of our expertise in this segment. For our TEB Private Banking customers, by also taking advantage of our strategic partner BNP Paribas’ global experience, we offer investment alternatives that can be tailored to risk preferences for our customers’ assets and savings. In addition, we implement many innovations in line with the needs and demands of our customers. We bring the digital world to our private banking customers. As TEB Private Banking, we are the most well-established brand and we serve our customers for almost 30 years. As being that much deep-rooted and innovation-oriented brand, it is not surprising for us to pioneer reliable, user-friendly, simple and accelerating solutions in the digital world.”
Mendi mentioned that they had implemented many platforms and applications that were the first in the sector to offer services to the customers from different channels and to create value; he continued: “TEB Private Network, which provides a closed and private network among TEB Private customers, share valuable information about ideas, general market evaluations, information about special events and interests; and TEB Private Digital Museum, where artworks and collections can be shared, are just a few of them. CEPTETEB, our mobile banking application, has also been differentiated for the needs of Private Banking customers. This application continues to be enriched with features that make it possible to integrate more into the world of investment. Private Banking customers can approve all their transactions through CEPTETEB with Turkey’s first “Mobile Approval” facility. They can operate in the fastest and safest way, away from the bureaucracy. For Private Banking customers, our biggest goal in all these digital efforts is to provide fast, secure, and practical products that are parallel with the digital requirements of the era. In this field, we continue to work on many projects such as Robo Advisory, digital portfolio monitoring and management. In order to offer the best service, we aim to combine our experience in digital as TEB and our strategic partner BNP Paribas’ worldwide experience in the field of Wealth Management.”
Mendi: “We are bringing angel investors and Start-Ups together”
Mendi continued: “With the development of technology and the expansion of digitalization, the change is also quite fast. Each year, as the cost of technology is halving yet its power is doubling. This offers great opportunities for people who are competent and willing to take prudent risks. Numerous entrepreneurs that have innovative business ideas implemented their projects with the help of various supports; investors also turned their attention to the entrepreneurs. At this point, as TEB, we have put forward one of the best examples of innovation research in the private banking business. With our Start-Up Houses that we have already established, we support the entrepreneurs who have innovative ideas. After this point, private banking stepped in and TEB Private Angel Investment Platform was born. As TEB, within this platform, we have trained and certified the private banking customers who wanted to become angel investors. Then we established TEB Private Investors Club. In this club, we bring serial investors, who are followers of angel investment in Turkey and in the world and succeeded mostly in technology initiatives, together with private banking customers. By doing so, private banking customers became angel investor candidates; and we, as a bank, have introduced a value-added product and strategy. TEB Private Angel Investment Platform has been in the ecosystem for more than five years. We will continue to support and grow these projects in the coming years, to demonstrate what Turkey can do for the society, the world and the future with its important projects and high-quality entrepreneur human resource.“
“We are focused on the concept of social finance & social impact”
Stating that they were developing a project in line with the social entrepreneurship concept, that had a rapidly growing awareness in Turkey as well as in the world, Mendi continued: “We started to organize a new series of events called ”Differential Impact Investments”. We collaborated with Ashoka, the world’s first and largest social entrepreneurial network. We are supporting sustainable business models by bringing social entrepreneurs together with potential investors. In addition, we are also organizing Social Finance Meetings with the aim of increasing awareness about the concept of social impact and social finance. Our goal here is not only to conduct investor interviews for the social initiatives we support with our network and business stakeholders, but we aim to reach the next steps as creating joint businesses and growing business models based on new customers and business partners. Our most exciting business at the moment is finding out how a successful social enterprise can reach a wider audience and how the social benefit factor can grow. Within the bank, we work with different departments to improve this approach.”
“There are fintechs in the future of the finance sector”
Mendi stated: “In addition to all these developments and our support, we believe that fintechs, which will take a very important place in today’s and future’s world as a result of the digital revolution, will take an active role in the future of banking and finance sector together with the banks. TEB is one of the most active institutions driving this trend. We have TEB Fintech Future Four. With this program, we offer mentoring services that might be required for the startups. Our goal here was to make these investors global companies. We see this as a win-win model on behalf of the Turkish banking sector. This project also continues as a major contribution to our country’s economy. We follow the new ones with enthusiasm and invite them. Together we discuss the services that can strengthen the competitiveness of the Turkish banking sector in the world”. Mendi continued:
“As a bank, we are proud of our structure, which can provide all kinds of financial and consultancy services that would lead an entrepreneur up to a public offering. With a strong partner from abroad, we aimed to open up Turkish fintechs abroad. Within this scope, we have positioned Nestholma, a North European Fintech Accelerator Program, as a consultant partner in our project. Northern Europe is a world-class center where the leading fintech technologies are created. Directly managing the transformation of big technology companies, this year Nestholma chose 5 different countries in line with its vision of opening up different geographies. As TEB, we are selected to be the only partner that the North European approach wanted to work with, regarding the projects we have implemented so far in all circles of the entrepreneurship ecosystem from Enterprise Banking to TEB Private Angel Investment Platform and TEB Private Investor Club. The initiatives that succeeded the TEB Fintech Future Four this year will be able to open abroad, thanks to Nestholma’s global contacts.
Mendi underlined that they would continue to support fintechs with the TEB Fintech Future Four program in the coming period and help them to introduce themselves to the European and the world markets and to reach the foreign markets by directing successful projects to such events.