2014 ANNUAL REPORT
TÜRK EKONOMİ BANKASI’S PERFORMANCE IN 2014
GENERAL OVERVIEW
TEB secured a pre-tax profit of TRY 795 million and a net profit of TRY 622.6 million on its 2014 operations. On a year-on-year basis, the bank’s net profit was up by 16%. Net banking revenues increased by 15% in 2014 and amounted to TRY 3,330 million. Improvements in TEB’s profitability and productivity last year boosted both its return on equity and its return on assets ratios.
In the twelve months to end-2014, TEB’s total assets grew by 18% and reached TRY 63 billion. Deposits during the same period were up by 15%, a performance that was above the sector average, and reached TRY 39.4 billion while shareholders’ equity increased by 12% to TRY 5.9 billion. At year-end 2014, TEB’s capital adequacy ratio stood at a healthy 13.96%.
Lendings, the most important measure of TEB’s support for both its customers and the economy, increased by 19% in 2014 and corresponded to 72% of the bank’s total assets. At 46%, TEB loans to customers in the SME segment made up the biggest part of a portfolio whose total value amounted to TRY 45.4 billion. Owing to its steadfast attention to asset quality, TEB’s non-performing loan ratio was a low 2.43%.
Continuing to methodically expand its service reach, TEB had 551 branches in its network at end-2014. The number of customers using the bank’s online branch topped 550 thousand last year while the number using its CEPTETEB mobile banking app passed the 227 thousand mark. As of end-2014, TEB was supplying products, services, and solutions to more than 5 million customers through 551 branches in 72 cities, 10 thousand employees, more than 1,600 ATMs, more than 115 thousand POS nodes, and a rich array of alternative delivery channels.
TEB’S POSITION IN THE SECTOR
Presented below is a summary of TEB’s shares of the banking industry’s essential magnitudes as of 31 December 2013 and 31 December 2014 together with information about changes in those shares. Looking at the highlights of the bank’s performance in 2014 as compared with that of 2013 we see that:
• Total assets increased by 18%
• Shareholders’ equity reached TRY 5,903 million
• Total deposits accounted for a 63% share of the bank’s balance-sheet bottom line
• The loan book grew by 19%, with total lendings corresponding to 72% of total assets
• The bank had a 2.4% NPL ratio reflecting its sound lending policies and prudent risk management approach
• Having lent out 115% of its deposits, the bank had a capital adequacy ratio of 14% and an 11.7% rate of return on equity.
These indicators are evidence that 2014 was a successful year for TEB.
(TRY million) |
31.12.2014 |
31.12.2013 |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
TEB |
Sector |
TEB’S SHARE (%) |
TEB |
Sector |
TEB’S SHARE (%) |
|
Assets |
62.992 |
1.994.238 |
3,16 |
53.409 |
1.732.419 |
3,08 |
Loans |
45.392 |
1.269.117 |
3,58 |
38.135 |
1.072.990 |
3,55 |
Deposits |
39.439 |
1.124.316 |
3,51 |
34.288 |
1.006.348 |
3,41 |
Branches |
551 |
12.210 |
4,51 |
544 |
11.986 |
4,54 |
Personel |
10.142 |
216.880 |
4,68 |
10.001 |
214.263 |
4,67 |
Source: Sectoral figures taken from BRSA December 2014 monthly bulletin |
||||||
AWARDS & RECOGNITIONS
Corporate banking
“Turkey Domestic Cash Management Bank of the Year
“Phone POS”
Retail banking
“Best Mobile App: TEB Kids iPad”
“Best Investment Website: melekyatirimplatformu.com
“Best Social Media Campaign: “Time Traveling with TEB”
“Communication or Public Relations Program of the Year: Social Services-Europe-Silver Stevie”
“Most Innovative Retail Bank Turkey”
“Innovation in Customer Service: Silver Stevie”
“Outbound Marketing Program of the Year: Bronze Stevie”
“Inbound Marketing Program of the Year: Bronze Stevie”
“Products & Services: TEB Enterprise House”
“Products & Services: TEB Angel Investment Platform”
“TEB Ağacım app”
SME banking
“Innovation in Customer Service: Bronze Stevie”
“Most Innovative Service of the Year: Gold”
“Best Product or Service”
“Most Innovative SME/Startup Business Banking”
“Innovation in Customer Services: Bronze Stevie”
“Best Use of Technology in Customer Service: Bronze Stevie”
“Most Innovative Product of the Year: Silver”
“Best Use of Technology in Customer Service: Gold Stevie”
“Small or Medium-Sized Business Product of the Year: Silver”
Human resources
“Best Employer in Turkey and Europe”
“Best Workplace Journey”
TEB CORPORATE BANKING GROUP
TEB provides major domestic and international firms, corporate groups, and holding companies whose annual turnovers amount to at least TRY 50 million with products and services together with added-value-creating solutions that reflect both its own extensive product and service options and capabilities as a financial institution as well as those of its strategic partner, BNP Paribas.
In the corporate banking business line TEB serves customers in the areas of:
TEB provides its corporate banking customers with superior made-to-order service through 15 corporate branches (7 in İstanbul alone), expert-staffed TEB Foreign Trade Centers, and a team specialized in dealing with the unique needs of multinational firms. TEB supports these services with the synergies arising from its own group companies and its partnership with BNP Paribas in 78 countries.
In 2014 TEB once again further strengthened the solid and trusted reputation it enjoys in the corporate banking business line while maintaining the highest level of customer satisfaction by addressing its customers’ particular needs in the constantly changing and intensively competitive environment that is characteristic of financial markets.
TEB strives to be “the first bank that comes to mind of customers” whenever a customer is in need of any product or service in the corporate banking business line.
A differentiated and specialized bank
Foreign trade is a business line to which TEB has been giving special attention since the 1980s. Benefiting also from the global service network of its strategic partner BNP Paribas, TEB enjoys an international reputation as a distinguished specialist in foreign trade finance.
In foreign trade finance BNP Paribas ranks first in Europe and third in the world. BNP Paribas’s operations in 78 countries and Trade Centers active at more than 100 locations in 64 countries significantly contribute to TEB’s competitive edge in the foreign trade finance business line.
TEB also has correspondent relationships with more than 1,500 banks located all over the world and it is constantly seeking to expand this network in line with customers’ needs. In Boosting its market shares in a number of markets in 2014, TEB also developed products capable of addressing a variety of foreign trade finance needs.
As a well-established expert in foreign trade finance, TEB can also provide specialized operational solutions such as foreign trade legal framework consultancy and preparing letter of credit documentation.
Cost-effective fund transfers
Whenever customers with investments in different countries need to transfer funds internationally, TEB is at their side with an extensive network of correspondent banks that make it easy to effect transfers in 135 different currency units to more than 180 countries. For customers who need to transfer euros or US dollars domestically, TEB offers same-day value-date solutions that are also very cost-effective.
TEB handles Chinese yuan (renminbi) transactions for its customers.
Under an agreement between TEB and Bank of China, TEB is authorized to process renminbi (RMB) denominated foreign trade transactions for its customers. This means that TEB customers can transfer funds to RMB accounts in China and other countries, pay for their imports in yuan, and have letters of credit issued in yuan. TEB is also the first bank in Turkey to issue yuan-denominated export letters of credit and letters of guarantee.
TEB also processes on-shore and off-shore RMB payments through Bank of China Ltd Beijing and Bank of China (Hong Kong).
As the internationalization of the renminbi continues apace, the currency is expected to come into increasingly greater use in the conduct and financing of international trade in 2015 and the years that follow. TEB is currently developing solutions to meet the needs of its customers in this area.
113% of our syndicated loan was renewed.
A one-year syndicated loan which TEB had obtained to support foreign trade finance and whose term expired in August 2014 was renewed at the rate of 113%.
This loan was renewed at Libor/Euribor + 0.90%, thus making it one of the lowest-cost sources of funding for which an agreement was signed in the Turkish banking industry in 2014. Thirty-two banks took part in the syndication, underwriting a two-component (EUR & USD) loan totaling USD 625 million. The 113% renewal once again confirmed the strong reputation that TEB enjoys in international markets.
TEB has set up an EMTN program for its international bond issues
Constantly on the lookout for ways to increase its international funding abilities and to expand its investor network, in 2014 TEB set up a Euro Medium Term Notes (EMTN) program, which makes it possible for the bank to issue debt instruments in a variety of currency units. Under this program, TEB had issued bonds worth a total of USD 126.6 million as of year-end.
TEB Trade Centers
Providing both foreign trade finance and foreign trade consultancy products and services, TEB’s Trade Center network is the first of its kind in the Turkish banking industry. TEB Trade Centers are located in five cities (Adana, Ankara, Bursa, İstanbul, and İzmir) which together account for some 70% of Turkey’s total foreign trade.
Thanks to TEB’s and BNP Paribas’s foreign trade finance expertise and extensive correspondent networks, TEB Trade Centers are places where foreign trade finance models can be exactly tailored according to a customer’s needs. These centers are also linked up with the international network of BNP Paribas Trade Centers in more than 100 localities around the world, thereby enabling them to quickly come up with appropriate and competitively-priced solutions.
Strongly positioned in export finance
TEB is one of Turkey’s most prominent and experienced banks in the foreign trade finance business line. The bank’s strong position in export finance is attested to by sectoral data. According to 30 September 2014 figures published by BRSA, the Turkish banking industry’s export-finance lending accounted for about 7% of total loans when retail credit is excluded. In TEB’s case, about 16% of the bank’s performing loans excluding retail segment lendings were used to finance exports.
Ranking 5th from the standpoint of its volume of export finance, TEB’s share of Turkey’s total foreign trade was up to more than 6.5% in 2014.
The staffing of every TEB Trade Center includes a team whose members have expertise in structured trade and commodity finance. This team devises financing solutions that are specifically fashioned according to the goods involved and customer cashflows. In this way, firms can be offered made-to-order products that go beyond the sector’s conventional financing methods.
Traditionally strong in hazelnut and tobacco export financing, TEB is also adept at coming up with financing solutions for other export commodities such as grain, edible oils, synthetic lubricants, synthetic rubber, plastic raw materials, chemicals, fruit concentrates, and mineral ores such as iron, copper, and chromium. Supported by experts, TEB customers’ financing needs in both domestic and international markets can be precisely addressed at every stage from initial procurement to final collection.
Having completed the legal infrastructure, TEB commenced its licensed warehouse operations in early 2013. Concurrently with this, TEB introduced yet another innovative product to the Turkish banking industry by becoming the first bank in the country to own a licensed warehouse and to offer structured commodity financing credit whose collateral is the goods that are being held in it.
Foreign trade training
TEB provides its customers with specialized consultancy services related to their foreign trade and investment activities. In addition, TEB also works with sectoral and regional exporters’ associations, chambers of commerce and industry, organized industrial zone directorates, and similar organizations to provide practical foreign trade training and seminars on foreign trade issues that are designed to meet the particular needs of firms in different parts of the country.
Foreign trade training was provided at to company representatives at 74 venues during 2014.
The most important of the foreign trade conferences held in 2014 was concerned with bank payment obligations (BPO), a new method of effecting payments in international trade.
Working in collaboration with the Turkish Exporters Assembly, TEB provided information about bank payment obligations to representatives of more than 350 exporters in February 2014. In the months that followed, meetings providing information about BPO were conducted jointly by TEB and regional exporters’ associations and chambers of industry & commerce in Ankara, İzmir, Bursa, Adana, and Gaziantep. These meetings were attended by representatives of more than 1,000 firms.
Bank payment obligations
Realizing that more than 70% of international trade was currently being financed through running accounts, in April 2013 the International Chamber of Commerce published a set of rules governing new form of foreign trade finance Designed to facilitate running-account trade settlements while making them more secure, the method is referred to as “BPO”.
In Turkey, nearly 75% of whose exports are conducted through running accounts, concerns about collection risk have been driving a search for solutions to better manage it.
Keeping a close watch on this process, TEB began exploring the BPO option itself in 2013. Holding a series of seminars through which it provided customers with information about this new settlement solution while simultaneously completing the infrastructure required by it in 2014, the bank carried out its first BPO transactions in the last two months of the year.
As one of only two banks in Turkey with the ability to offer its customers this newest and most sophisticated payment solution, TEB’s introduction of BPO makes it the 16th bank in the world to do so and the 5th in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Employing an experienced team of foreign trade specialists, TEB will continue to keep its customers supplied with the most up-to-date foreign trade finance and risk management products and services in the future as well.
CASH MANAGEMENT
TEB Cash Management continued to develop innovative customer-focused products and services in 2014.
TEB was granted the “Turkey Domestic Cash Management Bank of the Year” award by Asian Banking & Finance, a magazine that conducts one of the most prestigious international awards programs for retail financial services. TEB received this award based on the opinions of judges from four of the world’s top international consultancies: PwC, KPMG, Deloitte Consulting, and Ernst & Young Advisory.
In addition to its successes in mobile cash management products, TEB has also begun to provide its customers with new and distinctive financial services such as e-payments in its capacity as a “licensed private integrator” taking part in the electronic invoicing component of Turkey’s e-Government transformation project.
Cash management services and solutions for multinationals
TEB also develops international cash management solutions working in partnership with BNP Paribas. In 2014 TEB supplied BNP Paribas’s global customers with many specially-designed products and solutions allowing them to achieve greater efficiency and control in the conduct of national and international payment and collection processes related to their existing or planned operations in Turkey.
TEB will continue to supply multinational customers who need to employ a single global solution for operations that may be scattered all over the world with products and services that are fully integrated into BNP Paribas’s global cash management system.
TEB Multinationals Desk
As the first bank in Turkey to set up a Multinationals Desk back in 2006, TEB understands such firms very well. The bank distinguishes itself through service competencies that address multinationals’ unique needs.
Calling upon the resources of its own extensive network of domestic branches in Turkey as well as those of BNP Paribas’s 185 thousand employees, 23 million customers, more than 7 thousand branches, and 90 trade centers all located in 78 countries, TEB provides multinationals as well as Turkish firms with international operations with advantages and convenience in keeping with BNP Paribas’s “One Bank For Corporates In Europe And Beyond” slogan.
Through the Turkey & Germany desks that it set up in 2014 to increase cooperation between the two countries, TEB is at the service of Turkish customers in Germany and of German customers in Turkey.
Through the Multinationals Desk of its corporate banking division, TEB seeks to be the main bank with which multinationals with operations in Turkey prefer to work.
Cross-sales and synergies
In 2014 TEB sought to expand its cross-sales operations in an effort to provide its corporate customers with fast, superior-quality, and diversified products and services compatible with the sector’s constantly changing competitive environment. The underlying reason for doing so was TEB’s desire to make it easier to sell a broader range of products to corporate customers through a single unit responsible for spotting their different needs, having appropriate action taken, and making the services available for use as quickly as possible.
TEB’s cross-sales and synergy operations are classified under three main headings:
• In-house synergies and business development:
The TEB Corporate Banking Group works closely with the bank’s own SME Banking and Retail Banking groups in order to keep its customers quickly and efficiently supplied with a broad range of products and services. Under this heading customers are provided with specially-created products, services, and projects in the areas of:
• Collaboration with BNP Paribas:
Making use of the global relationship network and services of its strategic partner BNP Paribas, TEB provides its corporate banking customers with joint financing and credit support for large-scale projects that they undertake in Turkey, gives them access to international trade resources, and offers corporate investment banking advisory services. TEB regards cross-sales management as a potent method for delivering international services quickly and conveniently through a variety of channels.
In this way, TEB gives its corporate banking customers privileged access to the integrated service that is available only through the TEB-BNP Paribas collaboration in the areas of:
• Synergies with subsidiaries and affiliates
TEB has set itself the goal of being a single source capable of satisfying all of its customers’ financial product and service requirements. Another way in which it achieves this is by exploiting cross-sales opportunities through its own subsidiaries and the members of the BNP Paribas Group.
With the assistance of TEB’s own business units and subsidiaries and that of BNP Paribas and the members of its group together with the synergies created among them, TEB Corporate Banking will continue to offer its customers distinctive and innovative products and services in the conduct of its cross-sales operations. TEB champions a “cross-sales” culture which it believes can contribute significantly to the sustainable growth of firms operating in today’s highly competitive national and international markets.
TEB SME BANKING GROUP
Competitive advantages in the SME banking business line
The essential focus of the SME banking services that TEB has been providing since 2005 is informed by a “consultant bank” approach whose aim is to improve SMEs’ ability both to manage their own growth processes and to compete.
Research has repeatedly shown that although there are many different sources that SMEs may obtain their financing from, what these firms really have trouble with is effectively managing the resources they possess and that the most important reason for this is a lack of knowledge. The non-financial services that TEB has developed based on its understanding of the knowledge, training, and consultancy support that SMEs need to grow their businesses once again were what distinguished the bank’s SME banking service approach from that of all of its competitors.
Structural support for SMEs’ developmental efforts
The TEB SME Banking Group seeks to support SMEs’ efforts by standing beside them with its innovative products and services at every stage of their growth and development. In 2014 the group successfully continued its operations by introducing new products and services and making them accessible to an even broader customer audience.
According to the December 2014 report published by BRSA, the total volume of credit extended by the Turkish banking industry to SMEs grew by 19% in the previous twelve months, whereas TEB’s lending to this segment was up by 37%. According to the same report, TEB controlled 6.14% and 9.52% shares respectively of the SME segment cash and non-cash credit markets, increased its market share of agricultural loans to 5%, and continued to dominate the sector with a 37.5% market share of gold-based lending. TEB’s lending to the SME market increased above sectoral averages in terms both of the number of placements and of their total volume. Communication campaigns conducted throughout the year focused on addressing TEB customers’ cash needs on terms favorable to them. Under these campaigns, more than TRY 1.5 billion in affordably-priced commercial credit was extended on terms of up to 36 months to customers in the SME Banking and Startup Business Banking segments.
A new branch concept: TEB Seed Branches
2014 was also a year in which TEB distinguished itself through innovations in its branch and field organizations. A new branch concept was created for the agricultural segment: the TEB Seed Branch. Staffed by field personnel consisting mainly of agricultural engineers trained in banking who are also familiar with farmers’ unique financial and non-financial needs, six of these branches have been opened so far in Manisa (Sarıgöl and Saruhanlı), İzmir (Bayındır), Bursa (Yenişehir), Çanakkale (Bayramiç), and Konya (Çumra).
Transferring knowledge and experience to banks in other developing countries
In 2014 the TEB SME Banking Group further strengthened its unique market position by also venturing into the international arena of SME banking. Having previously been recognized by the International Finance Corporation as one of the world’s top three banks engaged in the provision of non-financial services to small- and medium-sized enterprises in 2012, the TEB SME Banking Group related its experience in this aspect of the business to more than 25 foreign banks during 2014. TEB was invited to take part as a speaker in conferences on the subject held in countries such as Brazil, Malaysia, Mexico, USA, Austria, UAE, Greece, Oman, and Ukraine. It also provided information about SME banking to financial institutions in such developing countries as Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and Armenia.
Special services for women's labor
Focusing on opportunities that it had spotted in helping women to get into business themselves in 2014, TEB began developing new and special services aimed at encouraging entrepreneurship among women. Women may have insufficient access to financial products and services; they may have difficulties finding information about and reaching international markets; they suffer from inadequate education and/or from a lack of business management experience. Such handicaps may frustrate their growth and cause them to drop out of the formal system entirely but they also create tremendous opportunities to support women who want to start up a business of their own. Taking this realization as its point of departure, TEB applied to and was accepted as a member of the Global Banking Alliance for Women (GBA).
Working through 39 financial institutions in 135 countries, GBA is the biggest international network of banks that have focused on the economic empowerment of women. One of only two banks in Turkey to have been admitted to GBA, TEB will be concentrating on efforts that will support women’s involvement in entrepreneurial endeavors.
Clinton Global Initiative
The worldwide recognition gained for the TEB SME Banking Group’s non-financial services in the wake of joining GBA was given an additional boost with TEB’s participation in the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in 2014. Founded in 2005 by Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States, CGI’s goal is to bring global leaders from all over the world together to discuss and come up with innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.
CGI’s annual meeting is held in September so as to coincide with the fall opening of the United Nations General Assembly. These CGI meetings are regularly attended by hundreds of heads of state, prominent CEOs, and other business leaders and a bevy of Nobel prize winners. The TEB SME Banking Group was on hand at the meetings to share its knowledge and experience.
Supporting entrepreneurship in Turkey
The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Organization (KOSGEB) has been one of the strongest partners working with the TEB SME Banking Group in its efforts to support SMEs and other businesses in their efforts to grow. In 2014 the two further strengthened that collaboration by conducting a survey that will serve as a reference for supporting entrepreneurs in Turkey.
Having launched a comprehensive program of its own to support entrepreneurship in Turkey, the TEB SME Banking Group played a role in KOSGEB’s announcement of the results of the world’s most comprehensive Entrepreneurship Index survey in which the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) polled more than 33,000 people in Turkey. According to GEM’s findings, 32 out of every 100 people in Turkey in 2013 aspired to engage in some form of entrepreneurship within the next three years. Besides making it possible to identify regional results and trends, based on the survey’s findings, Turkey ranks high in international entrepreneurship league tables. The results of the survey are certain to be a major reference point for TEB Startup Business Banking and others in the future development of Turkey’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. The GEM survey was conducted by GEM’s Turkish representative and by academicians from Yeditepe University’s Business Enterprise Department.
Last year the TEB SME Banking Group also worked with KOSGEB in the conduct of that organization’s “Four Counties Loan Program”, under which financial support was provided to Soma and other townships in the aftermath of the Soma mine disaster.
Credit Guarantee Fund
The financial support that the TEB SME Banking Group provides to entrepreneurs was also bolstered by TEB’s collaboration with the Credit Guarantee Fund (KGF), which selected the bank as the first (and currently the only) financial institution in Turkey called upon to play a role in supporting the country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Before this collaboration, there was a TRY 150,000 limit on the amount that TEB Startup Business Banking could extend to an entrepreneur as an unsecured loan. Now with the KGF’s backing, that limit has been raised to TRY 500,000.
Through the KGF Micro Loan Portfolio Guarantee System, it has also become faster and easier for microbusinesses based in some provinces to gain access to and benefit from KGF financial and other support.
TEB SME TV
One of the focuses of TEB SME TV, TEB’s online broadcasting service for small- and medium-sized businesses, in 2014 was increasing the technological competency of SMEs. Launched in collaboration with Vodafone Turkey, the TEB SME TV “Technological Solutions” channel explains in a straightforward and easy-to-understand way how to use technology effectively in business.
Mission: Be the bank of the future
While changes in the regulatory framework in recent years have increased the share of loans to SMEs in total lending, they have also increased competition among financial institutions seeking to lend to this segment. TEB believes that the sector must make an effort to expand its deposit base in the period immediately ahead and that it should strive to finance its lending more from internal rather than external funding. TEB also anticipates that there will be a moderate rise in NPLs though this will depend on the course of economic activity. In 2015, the TEB SME Banking Group will be focusing on improving market conditions as much as possible through an approach that is beneficial to SMEs not just now but in the medium and long terms as well.
Seeking to create shared value for stakeholders while also achieving numerical growth, TEB will act in line with its mission of being the bank of the future by completely digitalizing its products and services for its customers’ convenience via its alternative delivery channels.
TEB MICROBUSINESS BANKING
60% growth in microbusiness banking
According to BRSA’s December 2014 report, the total volume of the Turkish banking sector’s lending in the microbusiness banking segment grew by 19% in the previous twelve months, whereas TEB’s lending to such businesses was up by 56%.
TEB’s “Operating Expenses Package” was redesigned in 2014 so as to allow customers to methodically keep track of the transaction charges they pay.
The “TEB Boss Card” that was introduced in 2014 is designed to allow tradesmen, artisans, and small businesses to quickly satisfy their basic credit needs using a single card and the bank’s alternative delivery channels. With this one card, customers have convenient access to commercial installment loans, seasonal repayment loans, overdraft accounts, and company credit card accounts and they can make charges against the card up to their individual limits. Using their TEB Boss Card, customers can satisfy their commercial credit needs taking advantage of repayment terms of up to 36 months at any time of the day or night seven days a week from any TEB ATM or by logging onto the TEB Corporate Banking online branch. Using the card’s overdraft facility they can ensure that their own regular payments are made exactly on time.
Seasonal repayment loans are a product specially designed for TEB Boss Card users whose cashflows are highly seasonal such as businesses in the tourism industry. Repayments on these loans can be scheduled so that they coincide with the customer’s high season.
The TEB Boss Card’s company credit card feature allows users to pay for purchases confidently and securely both in Turkey and abroad. TEB Boss Card users take advantage of a 5% discount when they buy fuel from Total service stations. They also qualify for 10% Bonus points on restaurant expenditures of TRY 100 or more, a 50% discount on participating airport parking lot fees, and free airport lounge services at participating airport terminals.
TEB GOLD BANKING
25% increase in gold credit customers
TEB’s vision in the gold banking business line is to be a benchmark bank that creates value for its customers. Steadily increasing the value that it generates for customers all over the country through its expertise, accessibility, and efficiency, TEB is successfully conducting its efforts to be the leading bank–the bank whose name first comes to mind–in the gold banking business line.
Having served the needs of Turkey’s jewelry industry for 19 years, TEB controls a 35.3% share of the market for gold-based credit. The bank successfully defended its leading position in this business line in 2014, a year in which it increased the number of its gold credit customers by 25%.
Regarding every manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer, and exporter whose business is in the jewelry industry as a potential TEB gold banking customer, the bank enters into protocol agreements with the sector’s professional chambers and associations. It continued to do so in 2014, adding the İstanbul, İzmir, Ankara, Adana, Antalya, Bursa, Gaziantep, and Trabzon jewelers’ chambers to the list of professional groups that it works with.
Abiding by its principle of taking a benchmark-bank approach in whatever it does, TEB is not content just to provide financial solutions in the gold banking business line but instead it also offers non-financial solutions that the jewelry industry may be in need of. TEB for example maintains close relationships with the industry as a prime sponsor and supporter of goldsmiths’ and jewelers’ trade fairs held all over the country. In 2014 the bank held meetings with leading industry practitioners in Trabzon, İzmir, Uşak, Adapazarı, Manisa, Denizli, Aydın, Adana, Diyarbakır, Kahramanmaraş, İzmit, Bolu, Nevşehir, Karabük, Antakya, Gaziantep, Malatya, and Bursa during which it provided participants with information about both the sector and international gold markets.
Over the years TEB has drawn on its gold banking knowledge and experience to develop solutions capable of addressing the jewelry industry’s financing needs. Examples of such products are gold-based loans, gold-based installment loans, the TEB Gold & Diamond Collection System, and a package insurance policy specially designed for jewelers.
TEB Gold Banking also offers a wide range of gold-based products for customers who are not professionally involved in the jewelry industry such as demand and time gold deposit accounts, silver deposit accounts, accumulating gold accounts, and a gold-based mutual fund. A particularly innovative TEB product in this business line is “Yeni Altın Çağı” (New Golden Age), by means of which the bank worked with more than 230 jewelers in 61 provinces to bring so-called “under-the-mattress” gold into the formal economy in 2014.
TEB PUBLIC SECTOR BANKING
Working with 348 municipalities and their agencies
Set up to develop and offer specialized banking products and services that address the unique needs of local governments, TEB Public Sector Banking continued to be one of the leading players in this business line in 2014. Through its public sector banking approach, TEB makes it easier for local governments to locate the financing they need and also helps them complete their large-scale investment projects faster and more efficiently. TEB also provides a number of cash management solutions, such as Turkey’s first online and real-time collection service, which makes it possible for people to pay municipal taxes, fees, etc more quickly and conveniently.
In 2014 TEB Public Sector Banking’s portfolio included credit limits assigned to 348 municipalities and their agencies, the TRY 1.2 billion total value of which was to be used to finance investment projects. Last year TEB processed more than TRY 1 billion worth of real estate property tax and related collections on behalf of public agencies and organizations.
Through its TEB SME TV and TEB SME Academy services, TEB helps local governments deal with budget-related and similar issues arising from lack of knowledge. During the series of “TEB Public Sector Gatherings” held in 2014, issues were discussed that touched upon the process of institutionalization in municipalities such as the future of municipal administration since the passage of a new Municipalities Act, revenue- and finance-management solutions for municipalities, effective budget management, and internal control.
TEB AGRICULTURAL BANKING
A new branch concept for farming
TEB Agricultural Banking strengthened its farming-specific organizational structure in 2014 with 150 specialized agricultural portfolios and more than 30 personnel employed in headquarters and regional units.
In 2014 the bank began opening “TEB Seed Branches” staffed by field personnel consisting mainly of agricultural engineers trained in banking who are also familiar with farmers’ unique financial and non-financial needs. This brand-new, farmer-specific branch concept was introduced originally at three locations: two in Manisa (Sarıgöl and Saruhanlı) and one in İzmir (Bayındır). These were soon followed by another three: Bursa (Yenişehir), Çanakkale (Bayramiç), and Konya (Çumra).
Based on the success of the TEB SME Consultants project and its benefits to customers, it was decided to create a similar program compatible with the particular dynamics and needs of the agricultural sector. The result was the TEB Agricultural Specialists Program, which was launched in 2014. Twenty people who qualified as agricultural specialists after attending a six-month Agricultural Specialist Training Program have also begun providing consultancy and specialist services besides banking products to businesses engaged in the agricultural sector. The goal of the TEB Agricultural Specialists Program is to help producers transform themselves into agricultural enterprises.
Having already introduced “TEB Harman Kart” (TEB Harvest Card), a specialized credit card product that comes with advantageous payment terms that can be very useful when farmers procure essential inputs, TEB worked with a number of farmers’ associations and expanded its merchant partner network in order to enhance the card’s usefulness. Using their TEB Harvest Card farmers can easily purchase such necessities as diesel fuel, fertilizer, pesticides, seeds, seedlings, and livestock feed; repayments on purchases and even cash advances can be scheduled according to harvest times; and when purchases are made at participating merchants, farmers also benefit from interest-free periods as well.
Under its “Instant Harvest Card” program, customers who have been assigned a Harvest Card credit limit do not have to wait for the card to arrive in order to start taking advantage of its benefits: they can pick up an “Instant” card at any TEB branch and use it instead. In 2014 the “TEB Eagles” team of TEB Agricultural Banking direct sales specialists who traveled from village to village, engaged with farmers individually, explained the TEB Harvest Card’s benefits, and signed them up to take part in the program.
The “Interim Payment Agricultural Loan” is a TEB credit product especially intended for farmers who raise crops and livestock and whose earnings therefore tend to be seasonal. With this product, repayments can be scheduled according to the farmer’s cashflow. These loans are also available to producers whose operations generate continuous revenue streams such as dairy farmers.
Throughout May 2014, farmers were given the opportunity to take advantage of up to 50% discounts on the interest charged on agricultural loans in conjunction with World Farmers Day celebrations.
TEB provides general-purpose loans to finance payments of fees in lieu of compulsory military service. Like the bank’s other agricultural banking credit products, the repayments on these loans can also be scheduled according to a farmer’s harvests and cashflows.
As made possible by a change in the law, in 2014 TEB entered into agreements with two regional power distribution companies–TOROSLAR EPSAŞ Elektrik (Çukurova) and YEPAŞ Yeşilırmak Elektrik (Black Sea)–to help farmers finance payments for the electricity the use in their irrigation-related operations. Under a pilot project launched in collaboration with MEPSAŞ, an electrical power distributor in Konya and its environs, TEB Harvest Card POS terminals have been installed at that company’s collection offices.
The network of participating Shell service stations covered by the agreement with Shell & Turcas that TEB entered into several years ago continued to be expanded with the addition of new locations in 2014. Under this agreement, TEB customers take advantage of a five-month interest-free period when they purchase fuel and lubricants using their TEB Harvest Card. Both the number of purchases and the total turnover generated by this program almost doubled last year.
TEB STARTUP BUSINESS BANKING
The TEB Enterprise House has reached out to close to 40 thousand entrepreneurs.
Having recognized startup business banking as a distinct segment in 2013, the TEB SME Banking Group had the financial and non-financial products and services that it provided to SMEs redesigned to better suit the needs of entrepreneurs while the bank’s customer representatives were also given specialized training dealing with the startup business banking concept and approach.
Another noteworthy example of TEB innovation in customer relationship management in Turkey is to be seen in field personnel who are specially trained to deal only with technological entrepreneurs in order to provide them with more effective service under the heading of TEB Startup Business Banking. Techno-enterprise teams based primarily in İstanbul and Ankara have begun providing techno-entrepreneurs contacting the bank’s branches to obtain TEB Startup Business Banking support with service appropriate to their needs.
The scope of startup business banking service introduced in 2013 was further broadened in 2014 through new collaborations that TEB entered into and as a result of the efforts that it made to enlarge the entrepreneurial ecosystem. As of end-2014, TEB Startup Business Banking had reached out to nearly 40 thousand entrepreneurs, strengthening the support it gives them in their efforts to transform innovative ideas into practical business. One of the most effective ways that it does this is through the TEB Enterprise House located in the Ataşehir district of İstanbul.
In 2014, a total of 823 hours of consultation service was provided to 630 entrepreneurs, 232 of them from İstanbul. TEB Enterprise House consultants provided 2,011 hours of consultation to 1,367 entrepreneurs, 563 of them from İstanbul.
750 entrepreneurs contacted the TEB Incubation Center last year.
A total of 750 entrepreneurs contacted the TEB Incubation Center in 2014. The business ideas submitted by 37 of them were deemed to be worthy of further consideration. Fourteen of those were introduced to potential angel investors and five succeeded in getting investment support.
Since its inception, the TEB Incubation Center has been contacted by 1,300 entrepreneurs, 75 of whom submitted ideas deemed to be worthy of further consideration. Of these, 21 were introduced to potential angel investors and 6 succeeded in getting investment support.
Functioning as a component of the TEB Enterprise House, the TEB Incubation Center has developed a “Commercial Acceleration Model” that is used to help entrepreneurs discover and improve their entrepreneurial abilities. This model has acquired a reputation as one of the most important of its kind in the field of entrepreneurship development.
The TEB Incubation Center Commercial Acceleration Model is already being used in nine of Turkey’s most important technocities’ incubation centers. Recognizing the proven success of this model, the Eastern Anatolia Development Agency has begun to use TEB Enterprise House consultants in the selection of entrepreneurs to whom it will give grants in order to speed up and ensure the sustainability of regional development in the provinces of Bitlis, Hakkâri, Muş, and Van.
Further strengthening their existing Innovation Week collaboration, the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TİM) and TEB have decided to expand TEB’s Enterprise House concept into other parts of the country in order to discover and support ideas and projects with significant export potential. The first TİM-TEB Enterprise House opened its doors in Gaziantep in November 2014. The goal is to open more of them other provinces in 2015.
TEB has entered into an agreement with the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) to provide consultancy, training, and mentoring services to entrepreneurs selected to be the recipients of the council’s TRY 100 thousand grants under its 1512 B Entrepreneurship Multi-phase Program. TEB is the first and only bank to have entered into such an agreement with TÜBİTAK.
Women entrepreneurs grow their businesses with TEB support.
Seeking to support the increasingly greater number of women entrepreneurs who have been coming forth in recent years, TEB not only provides them with advice but also helps them transform their business ideas into reality by bringing them together with potential investors.
TEB Enterprise House supports women entrepreneurs in several ways. As a consultant, it helps them formulate business plans and define their growth strategies. As a bank, it provides them with capital in the form of unsecured loans. Finally as a facilitator, it helps bring them together with potential investors, some of whom may be the bank’s own customers.
TEB believes that both the number and the success of women entrepreneurs can be increased by showing them how to make effective use of financial products and services, by giving them access to information and international markets, and by helping them to improve themselves educationally and to develop their business management skills. The bank is committed to increasing both the breadth and depth of its support in this area.
TEB RETAIL AND PRIVATE BANKING GROUP
RETAIL BANKING
Continuing to make important progress in line with its vision of being the bank that customers most prefer, in 2014 TEB initiated and carried out many projects aimed at distinguishing itself in the areas of customer satisfaction and the customer experience and set up the “Customer Recommendation Score” system.
The primary target of this system is to ensure that the public have a positive perception of what is experienced by TEB’s Retail, Star, Private, and Enterprise and SME customers and that the Bank will remain at the side of its customers in the long term, in a wider range of areas.
TEB will be further developing the effectiveness of its NPS system in 2015.
Superior service throughout the credit life cycle
During 2014 TEB gave priority to both short- and long-term projects whose aim is to make it easier for customers to satisfy their financing needs and to serve them through all delivery channels.
TEB continued its efforts to ensure that its customers receive superior service not just during the loan application process but also at every stage of the credit life cycle.
In 2014 TEB initiated its first project to supply retail credit through channels other than its own. Under an agreement signed with PTT (Turkish Post & Telegraph Authority), TEB extends general purpose loans to pensioners whose monthly pensions are paid through PTT.
Nearly 320,000 Ingenious Accounts
TEB’s basic savings account product is called “Ingenious Account”. As of end-2014, there were nearly 320,000 of these accounts and they made up a substantial share of TEB’s balance sheet.
“Opportunity Account”, which is targeted at upper-segment customers, and “Binary Account”, which is a hybrid deposit/investment product, are two new additions to the portfolio in 2014.
The third addition in 2014 was In addition, “Keep The Change Account”, which was introduced in April in 2014. With a TEB Keep The Change Account, when customers use their TEB debit card to pay for purchases, the amount is rounded up to a designated whole multiple and the difference between the two is automatically added to their investment account.
TEB Family Academy
TEB Family Academy is a financial literacy and access project launched with the vision of helping millions of families make a better future for themselves. Under this project, 160 thousand people had received financial literacy training as of December 2014, all of it provided by TEB employees serving as volunteers.
In collaboration with the Ministry of Education and UNICEF, TEB launched the “Social & Financial Education Through Art” project. Under this program, which has the potential to affect the futures of 11 million schoolchildren, financial literacy has been added to the national primary- and middle-school curriculums.
The second Financial Literacy & Access Summit was held at Boğaziçi University on 27 October 2014 in a project undertaken jointly by TEB and the Financial Literacy & Access Association. The results of the second TEB Financial Literacy & Access Index, a survey conducted in partnership with the university, were announced during the summit, which was attended by leading national and international experts and academicians on the subject of financial literacy. The purpose of the summit is to promote financial literacy through greater public awareness and discussion of its importance.
A traveling children’s theater was formed as part of TEB Family Academy in May 2014 with the aim of fostering awareness of saving and thrift among youngsters. Admission-free performances of the theater’s first offering Wind’s Money-Box were attended by 15,000 children.
In the 2014 round of the Stevie Awards, a prestigious international recognition of the business world’s top achievers and contributors, TEB Family Academy received a Silver Stevie in the “Innovation in Customer Service” category.
TEB Star Banking
TEB Star Banking products and services are designed for medium- and upper-segment customers and are provided by personal customer representatives and through the TEB Customer Interaction Center and the segment’s own website. In the twelve months to end-2014, the number of TEB Star Banking customers increased by 19% compare to 2013 year end.
Continuing to rapidly expand its service network throughout the entire country, TEB Star Banking units were opened at another 100 branches last year, thereby bringing the total number to 250. TEB registered a 47% increase in this segment’s operational dimensions compare to same period in 2013.
TEB Star Banking activities in 2014 are briefly summarized below.
Bancassurance
TEB provides a wide range of insurance and private pension products and services through:
• BNP Paribas Cardiff Emeklilik AŞ: life insurance, payment protection insurance, unemployment insurance, private pension plans
• Zurich Sigorta AŞ: accident insurance, non-life (elementary) insurance
• COFACE Sigorta AŞ: credit insurance
According to figures published by the Insurance Association of Turkey, the total volume of the Turkish banking industry’s bancassurance life insurance premium production declined by 10.1% in the first eleven months of 2014 as compared with the first eleven months of 2013. TEB’s life insurance premium production by contrast was up by 83.9%, making it the fastest growing bank in this business line. In the case of the non-life branches, where the bancassurance industry’s overall premium production grew by 10.9%, TEB’s 33.2% increase outperformed the average by a wide margin. TEB owes this superior performance in premium production to a customer-focused approach that concentrates on identifying and understanding customers’ needs, coming up with creative solutions, and supplying them through the right channels.
In 2014 TEB Bancassurance continued to meet the insurance and pension product needs of the bank’s customers both through TEB branches and through alternative delivery channels. New additions last year made it possible for customers to buy and review their policies through the TEB Customer Interaction Center and the TEB online branch. It is also now possible for them to purchase package products through the bank’s ATM network.
A variety of communication and marketing campaigns were conducted last year to inform existing and potential customers about insurance and pension products and about changes in the Private Pension System (such as the introduction of a state contribution)S while also helping them to benefit more from the system.
TEB engages in an ongoing effort to improve and expand its bancassurance processes in order both to comply with changes in regulations and to provide its customers with the very best insurance and pension products. Comprehensive projects that it initiated in 2014 for this purpose will be continued in 2015.
TEB Customer Interaction Center
The TEB Customer Interaction Center’s service delivery processes were subjected to a thorough review last year so as to make them focus more on customer-centric business management by giving attention to the criteria of streamlined simplicity, the essential importance of information, innovation, and proactive risk management. The TEB Customer Interaction Center is informed by two distinct models: one deals with ordinary transactions and requests for information that can be handled with straightforward processes through the deployment of new-generation technologies; the other is concerned with more complex issues that demand special treatment.
Recognizing the inescapable necessity of responding both to changing customer expectations as well as the demands of new digital technologies, the TEB Customer Interaction Center strives constantly to keep ahead of such issues. Guided by its awareness of customers’ need for transaction speed and immediate accessibility and their expectation of a needs-based proactive approach, the center shapes its technology and its human resources profile and culture so as to be compatible with such requirements.
The TEB Customer Interaction Center’s state-of-the-art voice prompt system was made operational last year. When customers call up the center on 0850 200 0666 they are greeted by the system and asked to say a few words indicating what they want to do. The system’s speech recognition module then quickly directs them to the appropriate menu.
The TEB Customer Interaction Center’s voice prompt system has been designed to give customers an interactive voice response experience that is more straightforward and effective than is possible with other automated-attendant systems.
The 2014 Contact Center World Finals attended by more than 150 firms from 29 countries was a source of pride for TEB. With participants competing against one another for some of the world’s most prestigious awards, the TEB Customer Interaction Center was awarded a gold medal in the “Best Technology Innovation / Best Use Of Self-Service Technology” category.
The TEB Customer Interaction Center was also the recipient of two gold, two silver, and four bronze medals in various Stevie and Contact Center World award categories in 2014.
PRIVATE BANKING SALES & MARKETING
One of Turkey’s oldest and most experienced banks, TEB has been providing private banking services since 1989, which it introduced that year under the heading of “Wealth Management”. Blending BNP Paribas’s global knowledge and experience with its own innovative approaches, TEB Private Banking supplies its customers with exceptional products and services.
Working through 12 private banking centers and 16 in-branch private banking points located all over the country, TEB Private Banking identifies the needs and expectations of customers for whom it creates tailored solutions that add value to their assets.
Consistently demonstrating solid, sustainable growth in its business line, TEB Private Banking performed successfully once again in 2014 having increased both the number of its customers and the volume of the assets under its management by 17% and 37% respectively during the year.
TEB’s innovative and award-winning Private Banking Angel Investment Platform
TEB’s approach of acting as a consultant bank is both an important element of its corporate identity and its guiding principle in the TEB Private Banking products and services that it designs and offers. TEB Private Banking regards it as its mission not just to provide its customers with traditional products and services but also to proactively acquaint them with alternative ways of putting their assets to work. The TEB Private Banking Angel Investment Platform is one imaginative outcome of that attitude.
TEB sees the recent introduction of a legal framework specifically addressing venture capital in Turkey together with an array of tax and other incentives designed to encourage angel investors and increase their number as an important step in the direction of bringing new energy to the country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. As soon as the requirement that potential angel investors obtain Private Participation Capital licenses was officially announced, the TEB Private Banking Angel Investment Platform was launched and TEB Private Banking began hosting and sponsoring activities that would bring potential investors and entrepreneurs together in cities around the country.
Because of the TEB Private Banking Angel Investment Platform, Turkey was chosen as a model among all the countries of BNP Paribas Wealth Management Group while the project itself was the simultaneous recipient of three separate awards within the BNP Paribas Group.
Besides opening up brand-new investment horizons for the bank’s customers, the TEB Private Banking Angel Investment Platform also makes it possible for TEB to gain new entrepreneurs for the national economy by finding capital for projects that look like having a promising future.
TEB Private Banking iPad app: With you everywhere and always
Constantly on the lookout for innovative ways to serve its customers, TEB Private Banking developed the TEB Private Banking iPad application, Turkey’s first private banking-specific iPad application, and introduced it in late 2011. This app provides a digital platform by means of which TEB Private Banking customers may conveniently access current market news and comments, watch financial market commentary videos, and share their own messages and updates with other TEB Private Banking customers. The TEB Private Banking iPad application also inform its users know about invitations to free events and excursions.
The TEB Private Banking and BNP Paribas Wealth Management experience in consultancy services
TEB Private Banking makes use of the same Financial Portfolio Management Tool system that BNP Paribas Wealth Management used in Europe. This tool makes it possible to systematically identify suitable investment products according to different risk and asset class preferences and to track their performance.
TEB Private Banking serves as a bridge between customers looking for advice on philanthropic donations etc and BNP Paribas specialists dealing with such matters. With decades of experience in assisting its own customers in their philanthropic endeavors, BNP Paribas Group deservedly enjoys an exceptional international reputation in this area, which is one reason why The Banker awarded it that magazine’s “Best Private Bank for Philanthropy Services” citation in 2012.
In the area of real estate, TEB Private Banking provides its customers with services addressing both their personal and their commercial property needs. TEB Private Banking works with GIZ High-End Estate to develop bespoke solutions for customers interested in luxury real estate in Turkey. In the area of commercial properties, which have become increasingly more important in Turkey in recent years, TEB Private Banking offers solutions and opportunities through Kuzeybatı Real Estate Services, an alliance partner of BNP Paribas Real Estate in Turkey
“Your assets have a story to tell. Come, let's write that story together…”
In line with its “Your assets have a story to tell. Come, let's write that story together…” vision, TEB Private Banking seeks to stand by its customers not only when dealing with their financial needs but also in all aspects of their life. In this vein, it supports a wide range of outstanding activities and events in such areas as art and sport. TEB Private Banking customers receive personalized invitations to attend as its special guest prestigious exhibitions, concerts, and sporting events sponsored by TEB. It also gives them the benefit of many other outstanding privileges whenever it has an opportunity to do so.
An extensive line of exclusive TEB Private Banking credit cards
TEB Private Banking customers qualify both for the TEB Private Platinum Card and for the TEB Private World Elite Card, the most comprehensive and exclusive card offered in the MasterCard system. TEB Private Banking believes that the brand-new, boldly-designed TEB Private World Elite Card make a real splash in the world of credit cards when it is introduced in 2015.
Accompanying the TEB Private World Elite Card as an added bonus is free membership in the Priority Pass Card system, the world’s largest independent airport lounge access program. Offering a 10% rebate on restaurant and hotel expenditures all over the world, the TEB Private World Elite Card is regarded as one of the world’s most original credit cards in the sector.
TEB Private Family Constitution
Because it seeks to be a consultant bank that stands by its customers in every aspect of their life, TEB Private Banking also works with them on new undertakings that they may involved themselves in in the future as well. For this reason, it has created a system called “TEB Private Family Constitution”, aims is to set out the relationships between a family-owned business and family members and to evolve as the family and its business move in the direction of increasingly greater institutionalization.
CARD PRODUCTS MANAGEMENT
The sector’s highest rate of active use
Having introduced many uniquely-featured products that are cited as exemplars in the credit card market, TEB Card Products Management clinched its reputation in 2014 as the recipient of “most innovative card” citations from both MasterCard and the International Rugby Board. Generating a turnover worth TRY 14.1 billion in 2014, the degree of customer satisfaction with TEB-issued credit cards is confirmed by their having the highest rate of active use in the sector.
Just as its products command a steadily more important position in Turkey’s credit card market, so too does TEB Card Products Management make an increasingly bigger contribution to the bank’s bottom line. In a year in which the sector saw its credit card shopping turnover increased by 11%, TEB’s 22% rate made it one of the fastest growing banks in the credit card market. The same is true in the case of cash-advance turnovers, cash transactions which were up by 22% and 27% respectively.
Having successfully worked with prestigious business partners such as Total and Avon for years, in 2014 TEB added two globally potent brands to the lineup: PayPal and PayU. The PayPal Cash Card that the bank began issuing in February last year quickly reached 75,000 cards in use as its network expanded to embrace such strong national brands as Migros (supermarkets), TeknoSA (technology retailing), and D&R (bookshops).
TEB’s nearly 3 million debit card customers can use their cards to make immediate, no-fee cash withdrawals from 50,000 members of the Global ATM Alliance on six continents. The weekend cinema/theater ticket discount introduced on TEB credit cards in 2013 was expanded to include the bank’s debit cards too last year and this move drew much attention from TEB customers.
The first bank in Turkey to issue cards in both the Bonus and the World loyalty brands, in 2014 TEB was one of only a few banks to work with nine different payment systems.
2nd in POS turnover per unit
In December 2014, TEB ranked 5th among 25 banks in Turkey with a 6.4% market share (worth TRY 2.6 billion) of total POS turnover that month and ranked second in terms of turnover per POS unit.
Having entered the POS business line in 2006, TEB quickly rose to 5th place in sectoral rankings. In 2014 the bank succeeded in reducing its POS costs by 29% year-on. With an annual transaction volume worth TRY 27.5 billion, TEB POS serves customers through about 115,000 units nationwide.
Some of the highlights of the TEB POS system in 2014 are summarized below.
• TEB POS now works with nine different payment systems: BKM, Visa, MC, Amex, PayPal, PayU, Garanti, Diners, and Union Pay.
• TEB POS units are fixed-priced and come in four model/function options.
• In May TEB began working with PayU, an online payments system with a presence in thirteen countries. Between its introduction and the end of the year, the bank booked a turnover amounting to TRY 16.5 million through more than 5,000 subdealers.
• In the year since TEB began working with Amex, the number of the bank’s merchant partners in the system has grown by 52% while its turnover is up by 71%.
ALTERNATIVE DELIVERY CHANNELS
Transforming technology into service
Having identified them as a business line of strategic importance, in 2014 TEB continued its investments in non-branch banking services in keeping with its “The Bank That Transforms Technology Into Service” slogan.
During 2014, a total of 65 million transactions were performed through TEB’s nationwide ATM network, the number of whose units reached 1,635. Last year the functionality of the network was expanded with the addition of new cash-recycling units that can immediately dispense cash that has been deposited by customers without the need for it to be manually checked or recounted.
Digital channels are being used by 81% of TEB customers.
No fewer than 81% of TEB’s customers made use of one or more of the bank’s digital banking channels in 2014. In the twelve months to year-end, the number of online banking users grew by 10% and topped 550 thousand while the number of customers making active use of the bank’s CEPTETEB mobile banking app increased by 90% and passed the 227 thousand mark.
Digital banking accounted for an 80% share of all banking transactions.
In 2014 TEB customers handled 63% of their deposit, 85% of their withdrawal, 76% of their credit card payment, 76% of their bill payment, and 84% of their money transfer transactions through TEB’s digital banking channels.
We continue to invest increasingly more in mobile and wearable technologies.
Having previously launched iPhone and Android-based mobile phone versions of TEB Pratik Borsa, a mobile app for stock market and futures & options trading, versions running on the iPad and Android tablet platforms were also released on the App Store and Google Play. Continuing to invest in wearable technology, in 2014 TEB introduced the world’s first banking app specifically designed for the Samsung Gear 2 smartwatch.
Seeking to be a bank that keeps its customers supplied with the most practical solutions through the use of new technologies, TEB has integrated iBeacon capability into its CEPTETEB mobile banking app. Through this enhancement, CEPTETEB customers passing near an iBeacon device are notified immediately of promotional and other campaigns by a message sent to their phone. This is the first time that iBeacon technology has been used for marketing communication in Turkey.
QRWallet
CEPTETEB’s mobile wallet feature was the first in the world to allow users to withdraw cash from an ATM without having to present a card. In 2014 TEB introduced the ability to pay for online shopping purchases using CEPTETEB and QR codes. The bank plans to add QR-based payment capability to its POS units as well soon.
Renewed digital banking channels
In 2014 TEB made changes both in the corporate banking branch used by its SME and corporate banking customers and in its main website at teb.com.tr. As a result of these changes, these channels have been streamlined and made easier to use through the deployment of the latest in online banking technologies. Newly-added features and enriched transaction sets on the corporate banking branch allow users to display and track their financial positions more clearly and also to manage their cashflows more effectively. Changes at the teb.com.tr website make it possible to provide users with service and solutions more exactly customized to their needs.
41 digital banking channel awards
In 2014 TEB’s digital banking channels continued to rake in prestigious national and international awards and recognitions. Last year they were the recipients of 41. In 2014 TEB Çocuk, a website designed to teach kids about banking and financial literacy, took first place in the “Educational” category of the Golden Spider Web Awards for the second time. TEB Çocuk has reached 812 thousand children so far. Its website located at www.tebcocuk.com has been visited by 692 thousand visitors while the project’s TEB Çocuk iPad app has been downloaded 42 thousand times.
TEB’s “Cana Geleceğine Mala Gelsin” project was the recipient of MediaCat Felis’s “Best Branded Game” award and it also received a silver medal in the Kristal Elma series of awards. The “TEB Ağacım” project placed first in the BNP Paribas Innovation Talent Awards.
TEB and social media
According to Socialbakers, a social media analysis and publishing firm, TEB is a “socially devoted” brand based on its superior performance in responding to questions put to it through social media.
Known for establishing one-on-one communication with customers through Facebook and other social media with more than a million followers and a 90% response rate, TEB ranked 6th among Turkey’s strongest social brands in all sectors according to a poll conducted by The Economist.
TEB ASSET & LIABILITY MANAGEMENT AND TREASURY GROUP
The TEB Asset & Liability Management and Treasury Group was set up so as to ensure the robust balance sheet management of the active and diversified sources of funding in its charge. As one of the first banks in Turkey to adopt the “asset & liability management” approach, the analytical management methodology which it had therefore successfully developed through its own experienced and proficient staff was subsequently enhanced by the infusion of BNP Paribas know-how in such matters and was made even more useful through various information technology projects.
A successful year in terms of financial results
The TEB Asset & Liability Management and Treasury Group successfully managed the spread and interest rate risks arising from market volatilities in 2014. Last year the group managed its balance sheet in line with budget targets by taking existing and expected market conditions into account and pricing deposits and lendings in a manner compatible with market dynamics. Through correct and reliable strategies and active market tracking it properly timed its market actions and thereby ensured that its balance sheet was protected against potential risks.
The TEB Asset & Liability Management and Treasury Group had a successful year in 2014 thanks to its properly-timed pricing, portfolio composition, and hedging performance. Through liquidity management that was conducted with a sensitivity for compliance with statutory and bank-internal liquidity ratios, the group contributed to the maintenance of the bank’s liquidity.
The Turkish Treasury’s keeping its back-borrowing rates low despite its redemption of government debt securities from the market spurred significant development in the market for private-sector bonds and bills, It was in this context that TEB initiated seven separate issues of bank bonds during 2014 and endeavored to lengthen the maturity structure of its liabilities.
The Euro Medium Term Notes (EMTN) program creates substantial scope for issuing FX-denominated debentures as a way of diversifying available short-term FX borrowing resources. Having taken the necessary steps to tap this potential in 2014, TEB is now poised to increase the amounts that it borrows from this source over time.
TEB continued to lead the market in precious metal and banknote operations in 2014 as well.
Continued synergetic collaboration with BNP Paribas
The TEB Asset & Liability Management and Treasury Group continued to collaborate with BNP Paribas in 2014. Current developments were examined and future expectations were discussed at regularly-held meetings. In this relationship, TEB benefits from its strategic partner’s know-how in such matters as borrowing alternatives and particularly in the matter of modeling balance-sheet products for which there is a need while BNP Paribas benefits from TEB’a authoritative market knowledge and experience.
TEB integrates its own operations into BNP Paribas’s business processes through ongoing information technology projects, thanks to which its own business processes have been made more robust from the standpoints of identifying potential operational risks and taking measures to deal with them while the effectiveness of financial risk monitoring and reporting has been improved.
In the area of subsidiary balance-sheet management, TEB Asset & Liability Management’s advice based on its strong market insights contributes both to the management of balance-sheet risks arising from subsidiaries and to the conduct of well-timed reviews of product pricing strategies. Modeling is also performed for products that subsidiaries may be in need of.
Seven issues of bank bonds undertaken in 2014 made TEB debentures popular products with customers. Thanks to these successful issues, the bank was able to secure funding whose pricing and maturity terms were more favorable than its average deposit costs.
The “Ingenious Account” product that was introduced to TEB customers in 2012 continued to be very popular among them in 2014. Support was also given for the TEB “Opportunity Account” and for the CEPTETEB mobile banking app. Appropriate technical changes were made in the bank’s pricing methodology in order to support product development in this area.
Under the EMTN program initiated to diversify the bank’s short-term FX borrowing instruments, five issues worth a total of USD 250 million were carried out through BNP Paribas.
Support was provided for the special rates charged on the lendings from a EUR 500 million line of import credit.
Among the dynamics that influenced global markets in 2014 particular mention should be made of the Fed’s termination of bond purchases and subsequent market speculation about when it would begin raising interest rates; news of impending expansionist monetary policies in developed economies suffering from problems with growth such as Japan and in Europe; and a surge in fund flows towards some developing countries towards the end of the year that had been prompted by increasingly greater lower oil prices.
In the first quarter of 2014, the Turkish lira performed rather badly, losing about 8.2% of its value against a EUR 1 + USD 1 basket. It subsequently regained strength by the same measure until the end of July. Short-term volatilities in August and September combined with a rapid decline in oil prices in the latter month led to net fund inflows into the developing countries. In Russia, massive market upheavals were triggered by violence in Ukraine as well as by lower oil prices with the result that the ruble suffered serious losses.
The Turkish Central Bank (CBRT) strove to keep its monetary policy as flexible as possible both in order to reduce the Turkish lira’s volatility and to improve its stability in the face of such momentous external events. Having previously lowered its one-week policy rate from 10.00 to 9.50 at its May 22nd meeting, CBRT subsequently set about reducing it to the 8.25 level in three steps. The effect of this was to stifle excessive appreciation in the lira. By constraining its overnight lending rate to the 7.5–11.25 corridor, the bank also reduced the impact of relatively volatile international markets on the lira as much as it could. Deposit rates, which remain very high compared with those in swap and bond markets, are causing banks serious headaches with their liability costs but they too are expected to head downwards in the first quarter of 2015.
CORPORATE INVESTMENT BANKING GROUP
TEB Corporate and Investment Banking was set up in 2011 in order to offer the bank’s customers a new range of products. While offering new risk hedging solutions to customers particularly in the fields of foreign exchange- and rates, the grouphas also developed new products to hedge against commodity market price volatilities.
Structured to create competitive advantages
The TEB Corporate and Investment Banking Group combines TEB’s local market strengths with BNP Paribas’s expertise in the areas of capital markets, specialized financing, and advisory. Integrated into TEB’s customer portfolio and BNP Paribas’s product lines, the group benefits both from TEB steadily expanding customer network and from the strengths of BNP Paribas’s own product specialists. In 2014 the group continued to generate new synergies in the areas of financial markets, structured finance, and corporate finance.
The strong cooperation between TEB and BNP Paribas not only gives companies more effective market access but also enables them to benefit from BNP Paribas’s ideal pricing and structuring mechanisms and to compete in the international arena.
In May 2014 TEB and BNP Paribas jointly hosted “Financial Risk Management: Solutions for Corporates”, a conference attended by Turkey’s corporate companies. During the conference presentations about financial and commodity market derivatives were held while the economic outlook and markets’ expectations were discussed. TEB intends to remain a major player in such endeavors and to continue contributing to the Turkish economy by maintaining its leading position in the country’s capital markets.
Developments in fixed income
In 2014 TEB once again continued to develop its business model so as to better offer its customers products and services that best suit their needs. New information technology systems being deployed provided more tailor made solutions to clients in a secure environment.
In a highly responsible manner, internal procedures for client suitability and appropriateness have been set up in order to ensure clients meet the right fixed income products according to their business needs and risk appetite.
In 2014 TEB continued to contribute to the national economy by successfully pursuing its mission of Primary Dealer of Turkish Treasury auctions.
TEB SECURITIES SERVICES
An innovative approach in securities services
Since 2007, TEB Securities Services has been responsible for conducting the international settlement and custody services that BNP Paribas originally inaugurated in Turkey back in the 1990s.
TEB Securities Services employs a team of specialists to structure securities services solutions out of TEB Head Office. In cooperation with BNP Paribas Securities Services, Europe’s biggest custodian bank, TEB Securities Services provides local and international client with custody and clearing services. The division also comes up with innovative and painstakingly-crafted capital market instruments related solutions to the post-trade and post-financing requirements of:
TEB Securities Services provides:
2014: A year of innovations
Under the new Capital Markets Law passed in 2012 and related sub-regulation published in 2013, the settlement and custody services hitherto provided by TEB Securities Services were defined as “general custody services” and became subject to Capital Markets Board authorization. Application was completed and formally submitted to authorities in 2014.
Having carefully assessed the other advances introduced by the new legal framework, the bank decided to add individual and collective portfolio custody services to the lineup of securities services being provided at the bank. At the same time, the target client profile was also broadened to include portfolio management companies that are residents of Turkey.
Developments taking place in the wake of the İstanbul Finance Center Project and Borsa İstanbul’s strategic partnership with NASDAQ OMX, the designation of Takasbank as the central clearing agency and central counterparty, and technological changes at Borsa İstanbul should create additional opportunities for TEB. A close watch will be kept on these and all related developments as they unfold.
In 2014, TEB Securities Services continued its success of previous years, by taking on new clients, and effectively managing the increased transaction volumes of its existing ones. The division performed particularly well in expanding its assets under custody and trading volumes last year.
Drawing on the strengths of its global outlook and its trailblazing, client-focused approach, TEB will continue to be the bank that clients asking more than just a bank providing custodial services will choose for their securities services needs.
TEB HUMAN RESOURCES GROUP
In its efforts to achieve its strategic objectives, human resources are TEB’s most important asset.
Human resources policy
The TEB Human Resources Group strives to:
• Ensure that the organizational structure remains dynamic and readies the bank for change in line with the TEB Group’s strategic plans and objectives
• Recruit for and retain in the TEB Group employees who are highly educated and well trained; who are amenable to innovation and change; who possess entrepreneurial skills; who are energetic and dynamic and have job-progression potential; who are capable of teamwork; and who identify with and accept responsibility for the group’s shared values
• Support, through training programs that have been determined according to career-progression roadmaps, both the personal and the professional development of TEB employees so as to ensure that human resources are put to the most productive use in line with the bank’s objectives and strategies; create both a professional workplace environment and career-progression opportunities, including by means of beneficial access to the training programs of BNP Paribas
• Create a workplace environment that employees most want to work in; be the bank that employees in the industry most want to work for
• Contribute to the development of bank employees in line with the TEB Group’s objectives and strategies within the framework of the TEB Formation Academy and a “continuous learning and development” approach that recognizes training and development as investments in human resources
• Insofar as is possible, recruit and train bank management personnel from within TEB itself and make use of the group’s own human resources when filling position vacancies
• Operate and develop a performance evaluation system as well as merit systems and processes that will enhance both individual and team performance
• Provide every person with equal opportunities and means for advancement in line with their career paths.
With these practices, TEB Human Resources provides swift and effective support to all employees in all human resources related matters, while playing a key role in further raising the efficiency and performance of the TEB Head Office and the branches.
Recruitment & hiring
In its recruitment and hiring practices, the TEB Human Resources Group abides by policies that:
• Ensure that the organizational structure remains dynamic and ready the bank for change in line with TEB’s strategic plans and objectives
• Seek out and attract, without regard for any distinctions whatsoever with respect to race, language, religion, sex, or age, people who are highly educated, who are well-trained, who love banking as a profession, who are amenable to innovation and change, who are energetic and dynamic and have job-progression potential, who are capable of teamwork, who can identify with and accept responsibility for the group’s shared values, and who have vision
• Recruit and train bank management personnel from within TEB itself and make use of the group’s own human resources when filling position vacancies
• Provide every person with equal opportunities and means for advancement in line with their career paths
• Create employment opportunities for the inexperienced and/or newly-graduated as well as for those who have both experience and untapped potential.
TEB’s recruitment & hiring policies seek, through accurate selection and placement systems and tools, to attract to the bank people who have high potential and promise and who are creative, innovative, and capable of generating added value.
TEB Human Resources in 2014
• As of year-end, TEB had 10,142 people on its payroll at two headquarters locations and in 551 branches.
• 63% of TEB personnel have at least one university degree, 5.6% have advanced-level degrees, and 0.1% have doctorates.
• In 2014 TEB further strengthened its human resources by hiring 1,725 new personnel, 69% of them for employment in field operations.
In TEB’s ongoing efforts to give the utmost attention to training and employing talented young people:
• 33 people were recruited through the bank’s MT/ST programs; 18 were hired through its assistant bank inspector exams.
• 35 students interested in embarking upon careers while still at school were given positions at TEB’s call center.
• Traineeship positions were provided to 546 university and 393 lycee students.
Recruitment through social media
• Career opportunities at TEB are now being announced through LinkedIn, the world’s leading business-oriented social networking service. More than 8,000 potentially suitable candidates were evaluated thanks to the direct and quick access made possible by this service.
• Seeking to reach young people through social media, “TEB HR Q&A Sessions” are conducted through the TEB Human Resources Twitter account. This creates opportunities for TEB Human Resources to interact with users and to rapidly reply to their career-related questions.
• Online video-based interviews are held as part of an effort to give everyone equal access to hiring processes and mechanisms from wherever they may be through the use of digital technologies.
Career progression
Because particular attention is given to opportunities for TEB employees to advance in their careers, most appointments to management positions take the form of in-house assignments. In 2014, 61 successful TEB employees were promoted to management positions.
Information about current position vacancies in both the BNP Paribas and the TEB groups is provided through the E-Jobs system, which gives all employees an equal chance to learn about new career opportunities and to apply for vacant positions.
Branch operational promotions and transfers to sales positions continue to be based on examinations. A more objective basis for making transfer decisions is achieved by taking both exam and personal interview results into account.
A specialist team of Human Resources Work Partners provide all TEB personnel with career-related guidance and ensure that people are employed in positions that are the most compatible with their current competencies and past performance.
All TEB employees have access to all TEB job descriptions and career roadmaps through the intraTEB platform.
TEB Mentors
The goal of the TEB Mentors program is to give all TEB personnel the benefit of the know-how of TEB employees who are more experienced than themselves so that they may improve their own personal competencies and job skills. Under this program, which embraces the entire TEB Group, more than 650 employees have received mentoring support from 315 mentors.
A total of 245 TEB employees received mentoring support under the TEB Mentors program during 2014.
In 2014 a “reverse mentoring” program was also introduced for the first time. Called “We’re listening to the new generation!”, “Generation Y” TEB employees have begun acting as mentors to more senior executives, giving them the benefit of their own knowledge and experience of such issues as current trends, technology, and digital platforms.
Talent Management and Talent Development Plans in 2014
Under the heading of Talent Management processes, in 2014 individuals who have demonstrated high potential and performance were identified and their development was monitored by the Talent Management team working together with the individuals’ superiors.
Talent Development Plans
Through online talent development forms, the strengths and weaknesses of about a thousand TEB employees who have demonstrated high potential and performance are identified and advice is provided to them about how best to pursue their future career paths. Individually-tailored 18-month progress plans formulated so as to advance their careers are further enriched by means of rotation, e-learning, classroom training, interactive workshops, and experience-sharing meetings.
Through our Management Trainee programs, talented young people who join the bank are mentored by experienced managers and work on projects dealing with a variety of subjects.
In 2014 TEB continued to provide its employees with international career opportunities as a member of the “Mobility Community”, which gives BNP Paribas Group employees a chance to change jobs within the group’s operations in France, Belgium, Italy, UK, Turkey, and Luxembourg.
The “Breakfast Chats with Talents” program, which gives TEB employees who have demonstrated high potential and performance a chance to meet with senior executives in an open and informal environment, continued all year long in 2014.
This year’s traditional TEB Talent Day took place on 9 May 2014.
TEB Talent Day is an occasion for TEB employees who have demonstrated high potential and performance to get together with TEB senior executives and share their views about the bank’s vision and common goals. The theme of this year’s gathering was “Keep It Simple & Think Outside The Box”. After opening remarks in which senior executives talked about their vision and goals, Semih Saygıner’s presentation on the importance of hard work as well as talent attracted great attention. A “Help Us Help You” coffee break held on stage in which young people asked TEB senior executives questions once again demonstrated the importance that TEB gives to open, transparent communication.
Remuneration and fringe benefits
Salaries at TEB are paid monthly in a net amount after all legally-mandated deductions have been taken out of base pay. In addition to this monthly salary, all TEB employees may also be paid performance-based success/sales percentages or performance bonuses. The performance-based payments made by the bank in 2014 in total corresponded to 1.8 times the average monthly base pay of the personnel receiving them.
Depending on their job duties and positions, TEB employees may also be provided with company-owned vehicles and/or mobile phones for their use. All TEB employees are covered by the company’s private health and life insurance plans. The non-employed spouses and children of TEB employees also benefit from this health insurance coverage. TEB may, at their option, joint the employer-contributing private pension system that the bank runs.
Headquarters unit personnel take advantage of the restaurant and cafeteria services provided on TEB campuses. Regional and branch unit personnel are provided with meal tickets. Transportation services are provided for headquarters unit personnel. Statutorily-mandated rules and procedures apply to annual paid leave. Company-supplied social amenities are available for the use of all TEB employees and their families.
TEB Saklıköy Formation Academy
Located at Saklıköy in the Beykoz district of İstanbul, the TEB Formation Academy is not just a training center but also a place where employees and their families can take advantage of the academy’s sport, art, workshop, and restaurant facilities and activities.
TEB Formation Academy also serves as a venue for the important meetings of headquarters groups, business lines, TEB Group companies, and BNP Paribas.
HR Solution Center
Set up to be the first point of contact for the submission of questions and requests from internal and external customers about TEB’s human resources practices and to respond quickly and correctly to queries and thereby to increase satisfaction and serve as a communication platform concerning such matters, the Human Resources Solution Center continued to perform its functions in 2014.
In 2014 the HR Solution Center also began using Whatsapp, an instant messaging app for smartphones, as a way of receiving and responding to HR-related queries and views.
A Great Place to Work
The TEB Human Resources Group serves as a Change Management leader on strategic projects undertaken at the bank.
The TEB Great Place to Work (GPTW) Project, whose goal is to create a workplace that people most want to work in and to make TEB the banking industry’s most preferred employer, has racked up many successes since it was launched in 2012.
One of the most important contributors to that success is the fact that TEB’s management engages in sincere and open communication on such issues because making TEB a great place to work is a goal that every TEB executive believes in and identifies with.
TEB has set up The Employee’s Voice Platform. Consisting of 600 representatives from all organizational groups at the bank, this platform is the first undertaking of its kind in the Turkish banking industry. The Employee’s Voice Platform supports employees’ efforts to involve themselves in decision-making processes on issues that affect them. It does this by enabling employees to convey their feelings and thoughts about TEB’s journey towards becoming A Great Place to Work to the Human Resources Department and to management and to keep everyone informed about action taken in response to such feedback. As such, The Employee’s Voice Platform is pointed to as a successful model in the sector.
In the GPTW Trust Index survey, TEB jumped by 15 percentage points in two years to a 70% Trust Index. During the same two years, the percentage of employees agreeing with the statement “Overall I would say that this is a very good workplace”, which serves as the basis for the “General Perception Score” in the survey, jumped by 21 points to 73%.
As in the year before, bank-wide action plans were formulated under six main headings and put into effect under HR oversight.
HR Work Partners representing each group at HR meet with HR regional managers serving as HR representatives in each region, with bank group heads, and with departmental and regional managers to review the progress of action plans.
HR Work Partners and HR regional managers also meet with their colleagues in the group/region for which they are responsible to hear complaints and receive feedback.
Last year a Best Practices Forum was also conducted during which group and regional managers’ practices were reviewed and evaluated and the best practices within the TEB Group were identified and congratulated.
In the area of “Career & Development”, one of the six main headings of the bank-wide action plan, “Personal Development Plan” training was provided during 2014.
In the area of “Healthy Working Conditions”, another of the six main headings of the bank-wide action plan, rules were introduced concerning working hours, which were also systematically monitored in order to help employees better manage their work/life balance.
The only financial institution to receive “Top Employer Turkey 2014” and “Top Employer Europe 2014” citations
As a result of its efforts to be a Great Place to Work in line with its “Value The Employee” management principle, Top Employers Institute, an internationally-respected corporate research foundation, cited TEB as one of the best employers in Turkey and Europe. In 2014 TEB was awarded both the institute’s “Top Employer Turkey” and its “Top Employer Europe” citations.
TEB internal communication activities
TEB Passport
TEB Passport is a handbook that deals with a number of priority issues and has been prepared to make it easier for newly-hired TEB employees get up to speed faster during their first days at the bank. It is published on IntraTEB.
TEB employee gatherings
Enjoyable activities such as “Inspirational Talks” and the annual New Year’s party are gatherings that bring TEB employees together and spend some time with one another.
TEB bulletins
NevarNeyok [WhatsUp] is a weekly in-house e-bulletin that keeps employees informed about TEB-related news and current events.
Special day celebrations
Many different activities are organized with the aim of enhancing employee solidarity and company loyalty. Celebrations are held to commemorate special days such as Teachers’ Day, New Year’s Day, and the bayrams. On such occasions employees are sent gifts and letters and congratulatory messages are posted.
Managers Summit
As usual, a Managers Summit was held in 2014 in order both to inform lower-management echelons and to convey senior management messages about a variety of issues.
TEB Sports Academy
Intramural sports meets and other events are organized as ways of protecting employee health, strengthening team spirit and an “Us” awareness, increasing employees’ company loyalty, and creating social and communal benefit as an expression of social responsibility. For much the same reason, employees are also encouraged to take part in extramural sports and to represent the company as members of bank-sponsored teams.
The highlights of TEB Sports Academy activities in 2014 are briefly summarized below.
• Intramural Football Tournament and Intercompany Football Tournament
• Corporate Basketball League Tournament
• Intercompany Volleyball Tournament & Matches
• Eurasia and Runatolia marathons
• Intercompany Tennis Tournament Tennis Cup
• Pilates classes
TEB Club
TEB Club organizes activities in areas of interest to company employees that are intended to bring them together outside the workplace as well. Among the most popular TEB Club activities are its music and dance groups specializing in different styles.
HR Help Us Help You
In 2014 the TEB Human Resources Group organized 29 “HR Help Us Help You” meetings for headquarters and regional unit personnel that were attended by more than 4,000 TEB employees. During these meetings:
• The results of “Global People Survey 2014” conducted by BNP Paribas were discussed.
• The results of the “Great Place to Work” employee survey were discussed.
• Action to be taken throughout the bank based on the results of these two surveys was explained.
• Employees’ feedback on these and other issues was solicited and all questions were clearly responded to.
Breakfast meetings for newly-hired employees
Breakfast meetings are organized at regular intervals to solicit newly-hired employees’ first impressions.
BNP Paribas Communication Tools
Ambition, an in-house magazine published for BNP Paribas’s 190,000 employees in 78 countries and “Starlight”, the group’s internet TV broadcasts were made available in Turkish last year. TEB-related news items appeared on Echonet, the BNP Paribas corporate intranet.
Innovation at TEB
Having been cited as an exemplar of innovation by Gartner, a world-famous research company that has been studying the subject continuously since 2007, in 2013 TEB became the recipient of the European Financial Management Association’s “Most Successful Bank in Innovation Management” for the fourth year in a row.
In 2014, TEB continued to provide its customers with innovative products and services while also fostering innovation culture by encouraging its own customers and employees as well as university students and technology entrepreneurs through innovation-related activities.
Taking its efforts on behalf of innovation one step further, TEB launched an in-house Entrepreneurship Program, the first of its kind in the Turkish banking industry, in order to initiate an ecosystem that would encourage entrepreneurial-spirited employees to discover and demonstrate their innovative creativity and performance abilities.
TEB In-House Entrepreneurship Program
By fostering an entrepreneurial corporate culture through its In-House Entrepreneurship Program, TEB continues to transform its employees into entrepreneurial-spirited human resources who play an active role in the evolution of products, services, and processes, who dedicate themselves to their work and display initiative as a business-owner would, and who have a strong sense of responsibility and loyalty to the company. In this way, TEB encourages “In-House Entrepreneurs” who are capable of coming up with and carrying out innovative projects that have the power to shape the bank’s future.
The TEB In-House Entrepreneurship Hackathon that the bank organizes is intended to provide a marathon environment in which innovative, creative, and entrepreneurial employees come together and develop projects by sharing ideas with one another. TEB continues to back employees in their efforts to transform innovative ideas into profitable business activities through training and mentoring support.
The TEB In-House Entrepreneurship Program is an important undertaking in that it nourishes both the Startup Banking business line and the TEB Private Banking Angel Investment Platform that TEB created to support the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Annual TEB Innovation Competition
In 2014 the eighth TEB Innovation Competition was held. One of the most outstanding examples of the bank’s efforts to promote innovation among the public at large, the competition is an annual event that is now much looked forward to.
Making life easier for its customers through the innovative and creative products and services that it offers them, TEB regards innovation as an important element of its brand-differentiation strategy.
In 2014 alone, some 13,400 projects were submitted to TEB for consideration as entries in the year’s competition. The bank’s www.icatcikar.com website, through which submissions are made, received 175,000 visitors from 102 countries last year.
TEB transforms innovative ideas received from customers, university students, and newly-graduated young professionals into products and services for TEB customers.
The more than 1,700 contest submissions in the “Technological Entrepreneur” category served as an importance resource for TEB Startup Business Banking.
Along with their prizes, the competition’s finalists are also presented with career opportunities at TEB. To date, eight TEB Innovation Competition finalists have joined the TEB family.
TEB Spark Portal
TEB employees share their innovative product and service ideas among one another through the bank’s in-house innovation portal “Spark”. Ideas submitted through the portal are considered for possible practical use.
TEB’s “Idea of the Week” program, which is conducted all year long, is a chance for TEB employees to submit ideas about how to deal with a different bank-related issue every week.
The in-house “Be Inventive” competition, which is also conducted every year to increase TEB employees’ awareness of innovation and creativity-related issues, encourages TEB personnel from different units to join up as a team and come up with ideas. The innovative projects that they develop then go head-to-head with each other in a spirit of friendly competition that is intended to promote teamwork and team spirit.
To date, 372 of the innovation and improvement ideas submitted by TEB employees through the TEB Spark Portal have been put into effect; work is currently in progress on another 53 projects.
Annual TEB Innovation Conference
The seventh round of the TEB Innovation Conference, which is held every year and attended by TEB employees, customers, and internationally renowned speakers, was held in 2014. Each year’s conference focuses on a particular theme.
TEB Innovation Conference themes
2014: Keep It Simple & Think Outside The Box
2013: Innovation for Changing Consumer Trends
2012: New Generation Banking in a Digital World
2011: Innovation in the Customer Experience
2010: Tomorrow’s Innovation Today
2009: Overcoming Tough Times through Innovation
2008: Open Innovation
During the 2014 TEB Innovation Conference, whose theme was “Keep It Simple & Think Outside The Box”, leading sectoral pundits took the podium and spoke on the importance of coming up with innovative solutions by thinking simply about how to develop products and services capable of satisfying customers’ expectations. The conference also provided an occasion for employees who submitted the most creative ideas through the TEB Spark Portal and in in-house innovation competitions and for the winning customers, university students, recent graduates, and technology entrepreneurs in the TEB Innovation Competition to receive their prizes.
University activities, TEB Innovation Campus
In 2014 the TEB Human Resources Group continued to reach out to talented young people through its university campus activities that sought to introduce them both to TEB and to its career possibilities. Last year these events were conducted on the Koç, Galatasaray, Boğaziçi, ODTÜ, İTÜ, Sabancı, Bilkent, YTÜ, İstanbul, Marmara, Bahçeşehir, Hacettepe, 9 Eylül, and Ege university campuses.
TEB Innovation Campus is a program designed to acquaint junior- and senior-year university students with innovation through unconventional training activities, to provide a work environment in which innovation and creativity are supported and rewarded, and to engage in enjoyable chats with TEB senior executives. Four events were conducted in this program during 2014. They were attended by a total of sixty students, to the most successful of whom traineeship and job offers were made.
TEB Innovation Awards
At İnovaLİG 2014, an annual competition held to identify Turkey’s innovation leaders, TEB received the “Turkey Innovation Champion” award in the “Innovation Resources” category.
Both the TEB Startup Business Banking and TEB Enterprise House programs that TEB conducts and the TEB Angel Investment Platform that it launched in 2014 were the recipients of BNP Paribas Innovation Awards.
In the area of human resources, the efforts that TEB initiated to be a Great Place to Work in line with its “Value The Employee” principle continued in 2014 and earned the bank an IRB Innovation Award.
Quality activities at TEB
TEB’s operational processes are all subject to ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management System, ISO 14001 Environmental Management System, and ISO 10002 Customer Satisfaction Management System certification.
The operations and management of all three systems are integrated. The systems are audited annually by Bureau Veritas, with the results of each year’s audit being used as input for further improvements. TEB is the first deposit-taking bank in Turkey to have been awarded ISO 14001 certification.
Training at TEB
Recognizing that qualified and well-trained human resources are the most critical distinguishing factor in the financial services industry, TEB seeks to support the personal and professional development of its employees in the most effective way possible. Training conducted with this approach in mind is concerned with development and change projects undertaken with the benefit of both internal and external resources, with internal customer service standardization in conjunction with training centers, and with similar issues.
In 2014 TEB expanded its in-house training staff. The bank also worked on projects to make more effective use of internal resources and to make digital platforms incorporating the latest training technology an essential element of all of its training programs.
Average training time per person at TEB in 2014 was 74 hours, which corresponds to a 4% year-on increase in training time. A total of 10,671 TEB employees took part in classroom training, which made up 59% of total training time, with the remainder consisting of e-learning (38%) and on-the-job training (3%). TEB’s own instructor personnel provided 66% of all in-house training.
In line with TEB’s training & development strategies and objectives in 2014:
• Newly-hired personnel were provided with orientation, basic, and OJT training.
• A “personalized development plan” was written up for each employee.
• More comprehensive (18-month) personalized development plans were formulated for bank employees who had been singled out as having high potential and/or for demonstrating superior performance.
• Training for management personnel at the Leadership Academy consisted of the Executive Leadership Program, performance management and coaching skills training, the Management Skills Development Program, 360º Feedback Reporting, Generation-Y training, and training on different ways to cope with stress.
• Extramural (in-country, international, BNP Paribas) training was provided to employees in line with their job descriptions and/or based on their particular needs.
• TEB’s catalogue of focused programs (SME Guidance, Specialist, Business Counseling, Individual Family Counseling) was enlarged with the addition of “Corporate Banking Academy”, a program newly introduced with the aim of creating the banking industry’s best corporate banking team.
• Another new addition to the same catalogue was “Agricultural Specialist Training”, which teaches bank employees how to advise agricultural loan customers on such issues as business strategies and processes, business plans, production strategies, and cashflow.
• Training was provided and examinations were conducted on such issues as: performing mandatory essential checks of the validity and regulatory compliance of information and documents before using them as the basis for banking transactions; avoiding any losses to the bank in the conduct of customer services; ensuring customer satisfaction.
• English-language classroom training was provided to personnel.
• Employees’ English-language skills were tested.
• Basic occupational health & safety training was provided to personnel as required by the Occupational Health & Safety Act (Statute 28339 dated 30 June 2012) and by “Regulation 28648 dated 15 May 2013 concerning procedures and principles applicable to occupational health & safety training for employees”.
• Bank employees took part in mandatory Capital Markets Board, Private Pension System, and Insurance Training Center training programs and examinations as required by their job descriptions.
• Under the heading of Change Management, comprehensive change management programs were designed to help TEB employees better adapt to the changes resulting from such new projects as MOSAIC, KREDİJET, and CEPTETEB. Kick-off meetings attended by all employees were held during which senior management explained the essential goals and benefits of these projects; e-learning programs were prepared concerning the systemic changes they involved; individuals selected to be “project ambassadors” were provided with more detailed knowledge about the project; role-specific behavioral training was prepared. Employees who would be serving as team leaders were trained to be coaches capable of helping others adapt to the new ways they would be doing their jobs.
In addition to the foregoing classroom training programs:
• A “Mobile Learning Platform” was added to the TEB Digital Campus.
• A hybrid learning approach was adopted that gives trainees access to instructional videos supporting training programs, virtual training associated with classroom training, and a variety of reading materials throughout the entire learning process.
• Work was carried out in order to further enrich TEB’s existing e-learning catalogue with the addition of virtual training and game-based training programs dealing with a variety of subjects.