Digital Banking Transformation in Türkiye

Executive summary

Digital transformation can reshape both customer relationships and banks’ balance-sheet functions in Türkiye. The decisive distinction is between the institution directing customer choices and the institution carrying deposits, capital and credit risk. The report examines 2026–2036 through three conditional structures: the bank as a platform, the bank as invisible infrastructure and programmable finance. Across them, digital growth should be assessed alongside customer contribution, funding resilience and service continuity. No scenario probabilities are assigned.

Key findings

1. 01

   Digital customer records measure access; the primary financial relationship and deposit persistence require permissioned, deduplicated customer-level indicators.

2. 02

   Digital efficiency does not automatically become bank profit: funding sensitivity, customer pass-through, distribution shares and technology expenses must be assessed together.

3. 03

   Customer-facing platforms can gain bargaining power; service banking does not automatically move credit decisions and balance-sheet responsibility away from banks.

4. 04

   Competing banks’ reliance on the same cloud or AI supplier can create common operational risk beyond what financial market shares reveal.

5. 05

   Programmable payments and collateral can accelerate SME cash cycles; losing netting or intraday-credit benefits can increase liquidity requirements.

6. 06

   Inclusion should be measured through safe use, suitable finance and access to appeals; greater digital access alone does not guarantee these outcomes.

7. 07

   Türkiye’s inflation, interest-rate and currency regime jointly affects funding behaviour, credit losses and currency-sensitive technology costs; digital-investment returns should not be tied to one nominal path.

8. 08

   How efficiency gains are shared among banks, customers and technology suppliers depends on competition, portability and contract terms; the size of those shares has not been measured for Türkiye.

Digital activity indicators: annual change (%)

Source: Source: TBB June 2026 report; Table 1 in the full report. Unit: annual percentage change. Digital records: June 2025–June 2026; mobile transactions: Q2 2025–Q2 2026. Records are not unique people; participation banks are excluded. Values are nominal. Stock and flow categories must not be added; TBB’s 35/31-bank coverage discrepancy is unresolved.

Starting conditions for transformation in Türkiye

TBB reports 129.335 million active digital bank records for June 2026. Annual growth was 6.92%, while the change from the preceding quarter was −0.10%. Records are not deduplicated across banks and exclude participation banks; dividing them by population does not produce customer penetration. Measurement must look beyond access to where customers organise salary receipts, business collections, payments and persistent balances.

FAST, remote onboarding and open banking can change transaction and distribution costs. Türkiye’s inflation, interest-rate and currency conditions jointly affect deposit pricing, credit losses and currency-sensitive technology costs. Digital investment needs testing across macroeconomic paths, alongside customer trust and the licensing boundaries in force.

Customer relationships, data and distribution power

The interface customers see can differ from the institution carrying the financial service on its balance sheet. Service banking combines a bank’s licence and balance sheet with an interface’s customer access; the credit decision and bank–customer contract remain with the bank. Platform influence over distribution does not mean that losses and capital responsibility move to it in equal measure.

Partnership assessment should extend beyond acquired customer numbers to contribution after risk, data access, revenue sharing and continuity after termination. Competition and portability can pass savings to customers; powerful interfaces or suppliers can capture a share through commissions and licence fees. No Turkish sharing ratio is estimated. Customer benefits need assessment through interest, fees, time, fraud losses and service quality together.

The full economics of digital investment

Mobile services and automation can reduce transaction costs. Easier offer comparison and rapid transfers can also make deposits more sensitive to pricing, while distribution partners may capture part of the revenue. US research on digital channels and deposit behaviour supports this mechanism but does not measure its magnitude in Türkiye.

Investment appraisal should deduct customer pass-through, technology and model-governance expenses, distribution shares and additional funding costs from gross operating savings. Net contribution needs testing across interest-rate conditions, deposit persistence and partnership terms. The full report’s illustrative calculations demonstrate this sensitivity; they are not profitability forecasts for Türkiye.

AI and shared technology dependencies

AI can improve credit assessment, fraud prevention, operations and pricing. Model errors, discriminatory outcomes, unexplained pricing and inappropriate transaction blocks can reduce those benefits. Effects should be measured by customer group and use case; material decisions need explanations, appeals and routes for human intervention.

Competing banks may rely on the same cloud, identity or foundation-model service. Bank market shares therefore cannot stand in for critical technology concentration. Critical services should be mapped through subcontractors, regions and model versions, with independent continuity and supplier-exit options tested. No Turkish sector concentration ratio is reported because verified supplier shares are unavailable.

Scenario A — The bank as a platform

Banks bring customer relationships, permissioned data, distribution and balance sheets together within their ecosystems. Financial services integrate with SME accounting, collections, investment and cash management. Scale, trust and funding advantages can strengthen bank-led partnerships, while supplier bargaining power and concentration risks may also grow.

This path is credible when application activity grows alongside the primary payment relationship, persistent balances and contribution after risk. If activity rises while these measures weaken, the assumption of bank centrality becomes less convincing. Competition assessment should track how lower transaction costs reach customer prices, product quality and the ability to compare offers.

Scenario B — The bank as invisible infrastructure

Product selection happens through the customer’s commerce, accounting or financial platform; banks provide funding, credit, risk management and compliance capacity. Customer-authorised AI agents could extend that routing in the future. Widespread autonomous commercial use in Türkiye is not treated as an established fact.

Interfaces can gain bargaining power while capital and credit risk remain with banks. Success requires reliable data access, explicit responsibility and sustainable contribution for both parties. The share of business routed externally, contract terms and funding movements are early signals. If trust or partnership economics deteriorate, the customer relationship may return to the bank.

Scenario C — Programmable money and financial transactions

Executing payment, asset delivery and collateral conditions together can reduce waiting and reconciliation. Properly structured tokenised deposits represent claims on banks; central bank money is a central bank liability. Electronic money and other digital instruments should not be assumed to have the same legal status.

Faster execution can increase prefunding if netting, intraday credit or liquidity reuse is lost. The ECB’s 21 September 2026 Pontes launch is a wholesale settlement development; TCMB’s Digital Turkish Lira work is considered within research and development. Transition requires legal certainty, interoperability, repeated real volume and verified benefits in total process costs.

Bank types, SME finance and inclusion

Primary relationships and funding persistence matter for deposit banks. For participation banks, contract structure, asset links and participation-finance compliance are part of digital design. Development and investment banks can specialise in project finance, exports, custody and collateral services. A digital channel or interface does not automatically expand an institution’s permitted activities.

Permissioned collection and payment data can make an SME’s cash-generating capacity visible; a limited data trail can also become a new source of exclusion. Internet access should not be equated with safe financial use or suitable credit access. Assisted service, accessible design, human appeals and disaster or outage continuity should enter customer-welfare and cost assessments together.

What international experience means for Türkiye

Brazil’s Pix and open-finance experience illustrates competition on shared payment infrastructure; India’s UPI and account-aggregation framework separates payment interfaces from permissioned data flows. Counting UK open-banking connections does not replace measuring unique people or primary bank relationships. The same distinction matters for Türkiye’s digital record indicators.

Euro-area wholesale token settlement provides a comparison for assessing speed alongside liquidity. Transfer depends on fee rules, identity infrastructure, customer trust, data governance and legal certainty. Türkiye’s FAST and open-banking infrastructure can make transfer easier; differences in inflation, funding and regulation prevent assuming the same commercial outcome.

A ten-year vision and stakeholder action agenda

Common priorities for the first two years are primary-relationship measurement, deposit stress testing, reliable APIs, AI governance and critical-service mapping. Banks should measure product contribution alongside funding behaviour. Regulators should monitor customer authority, responsibility and shared-supplier dependencies by function, improving comparable data and safe routes for appeals.

Fintechs can begin with multi-bank connectivity and portable contracts; corporate customers with ERP, invoice and payment reconciliation. In years three–five, bounded pilots should expand through legal-certainty and net-benefit tests. In years six–ten, scaling should follow verified customer value and resilience. Alternatives and exit costs need appraisal before commitment to one supplier or infrastructure that is difficult to reverse.

Early signals and when to reconsider decisions

Monitoring should connect digital activity with primary-relationship contribution; deposit beta with outflows; partner commissions with revenue after risk; and technology savings with errors and service loss. Programmable pilots need measures of total cost, peak liquidity requirements and collateral lock-up time. Thresholds require internal data and risk-appetite calibration; no universal numerical limit is proposed.

A and B differ in who controls customer decisions; C is a settlement change that can develop alongside either. Inflation, interest-rate, currency, fraud and critical-supplier shocks should be applied across all scenarios. Türkiye’s desired system supports competition and productive finance while protecting customer authority, visible risk responsibility and service continuity.

Data sources, scope and limitations

Data sources

• BDDK, TCMB, TÜİK and the Official Gazette
• Turkish Banks Association: digital-channel and remote-onboarding statistics
• BIS/BCBS, FSB and the World Bank
• ECB, Banco Central do Brasil, RBI and UK regulators
• Academic studies, bank reports and preceding Axis research

Limitations

Digital customer records are not unique people; participation banks are outside the TBB digital series and its 35/31-bank coverage discrepancy remains unresolved. Public data cannot estimate bank-specific deposit betas, customer persistence or supplier concentration. Institution-specific budget and capital decisions require internal calibration. Pilots do not establish commercial scale.

References and related links

• TBB — Digital banking statistics, June 2026
• TÜİK — Consumer Price Index, August 2026
• TCMB — Monetary policy decision, September 2026
• TÜİK — Household ICT usage, 2026
• Official Gazette — Digital banks and service banking regulation
• TCMB — Payment services and electronic money regulation
• TCMB — Open banking and ÖHVPS 2.0
• TCMB — Digital Turkish Lira ecosystem announcement
• TCMB — Financial Stability Report, May 2026
• BCBS — Digitalisation of finance
• BCBS — Principles for operational resilience
• FSB — Financial stability implications of AI
• Koont, Santos and Zingales — Destabilizing Digital Bank Walks
• Fuster and coauthors — Predictably Unequal
• BIS — The next-generation monetary and financial system
• Banco Central do Brasil — Financial Stability Report, April 2025
• RBI — Account Aggregator framework
• NPCI — UPI multi-bank approach
• Open Banking Limited — Open Banking in 2025
• ECB — Pontes launch, September 2026