M-Wallet: Turkcell Launches Turkcell Wallet

• Turkcell launches its SIM-centric Turkcell Wallet, gathering a full range of services –including payments– regardless of the mobile device used. The wallet will be made available to all –banked and unbanked– Turkcell customers (or roughly 28 million potential subscribers) and applied to all sorts of phones (from the most basic models –transactions initiated through the SIM menu– to smartphones –with the associated app).

• Services include contactless payments (with NFC compatible devices), m payments and m-banking, e-commerce (entering the mobile phone number on partner websites), face-to-face payments (entering the phone number on the POS device at participating retail stores), P2P transfers (using the phone number and an OTP SMS at the ATM), air-time top-ups, bill payments, management of rewards programmes, etc.

• Users may enable their wallet and add cards simply through sending an SMS. They can top-up in cash at Garanti Bank ATMs and Turkcell locations. MasterCard/Maestro contactless cards as well as Akbank, Garanti Bank, Denizbank and Yapi Kredi Bank cards can already be integrated. So can Turkcell SIM-based prepaid offers, Cep-T Paracard (in partnership with Garanti Bank) and Cep-T Neo (with Akbank).     

Source: Press release

• Turkcell has been leading its native m-payment market, and makes the difference with this innovative, device-independent, solution for all (with or without a bank account). In addition, this new service enhances its own range of prepaid products (see January 2012 Insight).

• Their wallet, developed by Turkcell Teknoloji and Garanti Bank, is also open to other potential partners and could soon have attracted over ten banks according to the mobile carrier. Initially proposed in Turkey only, it could later on be extended to other regions (FSU, Middle-East and North Africa).