Turkey's fintech investments skyrocket in 2016: Report

By Murat Birinci

ISTANBUL

Turkey's financial technology (fintech) investments increased by 175 percent year-on-year to $29 million in 2016, Turkey's FinTech Ecosystem report revealed on Thursday.

"The size of the fintech market in Turkey is $15 billion with over 200 companies. Despite rapid growth and development, the field of financial technology, that is relatively new, could not reach the desired level in Turkey.

“However, this is a sign of high potential in the fintech field," according to the joint report from Deloitte, the Interbank Card Center (BKM) and FinTech Istanbul.

The report noted that venture capital and angel investment networks invested $53.2 million between 2012 and 2016 in fintech initiatives.

The report said the Turkish finance sector and banking system, which adopted a strong stance against economic and political fluctuations globally as well as locally, are the main driving forces behind the improvement of the fintech sector.

It also added that Turkey's dynamic and young workforce, along with skilled human resources in the field of technology, finance and banking, also contributed to rapid growth of the fintech environment in recent years.

"The fintech ecosystem players in Turkey mainly operate in budget management, collection, POS (device of point of sale) management, pre-accountancy, cash register, banking software and credit rating with prepaid debit cards, wallet applications, payment follow up, offline payment, money transfer, discount and loyalty cards," the report read.

It also points out that a strong finance sector and banking system, the vision of Istanbul as an international finance sector and supporting attitude of banks for fintech start-ups will play an important role.

Turkey’s fintech sector can sustain improvement with an annual average of 14 percent growth rate, the report said.