Garanti Bank e-Commerce Services

Garanti has been at the forefront of the Turkish e-Commerce sector since February 1998, when it accomplished the first SET compliant credit card transaction in Turkey. In fact, until the beginning of year 2000 Garanti was the single institution offering online credit card processing services. Since the beginning Garanti not only acted as a payment processor and a bank but also behaved as a market builder by informing the public about e-commerce through training programs, conferences, publications, and brochures. While Garanti tries to grow the e-commerce market, at the same time it has continuously invested in e-commerce payment systems seeking higher quality services to both merchants and customers. Compliant with the SET standard, the Garanti Virtual POS system offered Turkish e-Commerce firms a secure high quality solution for their online card processing needs.

Continuing to pioneer in the e-Commerce industry, Garanti Bank developed in 1999 one of the world's first "virtual debit card". This card, a regular mastercard at first sight, has two features that set it apart: it is virtual and only exists on its holders screen, and it has a credit limit of zero. The cardholder can increase this limit by transferring funds from a regular checking account to the virtual card's account. Once the transaction is completed, the amount remaining on the virtual card can be transfered back to the checking account. This offers increased security for online purchases, mainly because the virtual card has no credit limit unless the card holder transfers funds.

In 2001, Garanti Bank continued to develop its e-Commerce activities. Now serving over 500 merchants with its vPOS system, it processes 70% of Turkey's e-Commerce transactions. To maintain its quality of service despite the rapidly increasing number of new merchants, Garanti Bank has recently upgraded its card processing infrastructure with Verifone's flagship processing software, Payworks. Together with enhanced capacity and stability, the new system offers a fully localized user interface together with easy navigation and online help.

2001 is also the official release date of Garanti's "virtual credit card". As an upgrade over the previous "virtual debit card", the new payment method tailored for the internet offers Garanti credit card holders the possibility to transfer credit limits from their physical card to its virtual counterpart.

To keep its leading position in the Turkish e-Commerce sector, Garanti Bank is constantly improving the quality of its service and develop new e-Solutions that redefine the way Turkish firms do e-Commerce. Among these, "Garanti Alisveris" (Garanti Shopping), Garanti's latest e-Commerce project, provides an affordable online store creation tool that blends ease of use with a broad range of options. Aiming to be Turkey's largest online e-Mall, "Garanti Alisveris" offers a user-friendly web-based interface that lets merchants build and administrate their online store with ease.

Building on the success of "Garanti Alisveris", Garanti Bank has recently launched another online mall, "BonusCardShop.com". Based on "Bonus Card", Garanti Bank's succesful loyalty credit card program, BonusCardShop.com offers Bonus Card customers the ability to shop online spending and earning "Bonus Money".

Garanti will persist its leadership in the Turkish e-commerce market and add new and high quality services in the near future.

For further information, please send an e-mail to eticaret@garanti.com.tr