Our Social and
Relational Capital

Within the scope of our customer and quality-oriented growth strategy, we completed the installation of the ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System in 2017. In this context, by first aligning the banking processes of the Head Office departments and all branches with the ISO 9001 Quality Management System, we have certified all our locations, including our branches and regions, with ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System as of 2019. In 2023, we also guaranteed the system’s continuity through audits conducted within the scope of the Integrated Management System.

Measuring customer satisfaction is the basis for maintaining customer loyalty and making the right decisions in banking. Today, customer satisfaction measurement has become an inevitable requirement and is of great importance for both developing the right strategies and ensuring customer loyalty. In this context, our bank which understands the changing expectations of its customers and works to provide them with fast and satisfaction-oriented solutions attaches great importance to customer feedback. In 2023, we regularly conducted our “Net Promoter Score” and effort/satisfaction surveys. The more than 150,000 feedbacks we have received constitute an important input for the actions taken and projects developed to ensure that our customers have a smoother experience across all our channels.

We also regularly conduct our journey map studies where we analyze the experience of our customers at our Bank’s contact points from end to end. In this manner, we aim to provide our customers with a flawless experience by better understanding customer expectations and identifying challenges in our processes. Thanks to the outputs we have obtained from these endeavors, which we have carried out by including our customers, especially our relevant units and branches, we have redesigned our processes to provide the best experience to our customers, and we have implemented many projects that shall take the customer experience to the next level in all channels where we come into contact with the customer, especially our digital channels.

In order to constantly improve the experience of our customers in our branches, we continue to simplify our business processes and move these processes to a paperless environment. In this manner, we provide our customers with a smoother experience while contributing to our sustainable banking vision. In this context, the transactions we completed with digital approval prevented the consumption of more than 43 million papers in 2023.

In 2023, we acquired 250 thousand customers through the remote customer process.

In order to improve customer experience and loyalty, we continued our efforts to minimize the time spent in branches, to offer relevant products with personalized offers by focusing on customers’ preferences and tendencies, and to rank first in the sector in customer satisfaction by evaluating the feedback we have received from customers.

In 2021, we included legal entities in our “Remote Customer Acquisition” project, which started with individual customers and continued with real persons with commercial activities and completed our developments in this direction. Following the publication of the legislation that allows legal entities to become customers through remote authentication methods, we launched our project and became one of the first banks to offer legal entities the experience of becoming remote customers. Within the scope of the project, if the persons authorized to individually represent limited liability companies have an NFC-enabled device and an ID with chip, they can connect to the video call channel via the mobile application and complete the remote authentication process through the representative quickly and in a short time without the need to go to the branch.

With the understanding of making the lives of our customers easier and improving their experiences with our digital products, we enabled them to perform transactions such as Identity Updates, Phone Number Addition/Updates, SIM Card Unblocking, Limit Updates, etc. with NFC technology, without the need to go to the branch, in a more practical and time-saving manner.

In 2023, we won the Team of the Year Gold PSM award for the 2nd time at the “PSM Awards 2023” organized by PSM (Payment Systems Magazine) with our “Remote Customer Update with VakıfBank Mobile” and “Remote Legal Customer Acquisition” projects.

We sustain our efforts to increase the number of transactions made through the video call channel. Following the completion of our work, we aim to enable the swift and effortless completion of numerous transactions, previously referred to the branches, through the video service provided via the Customer Communication Center on the mobile application. In the upcoming period, we shall make it possible to complete the processes with Money Transfer verification in order to ensure customer acquisition on devices without NFC feature.

In 2023, we initiated the Voice Signature project as part of voice authentication technology, thereby achieving a revolutionary transformation in the customer authentication process. Instead of sending single-use password to our customers and requiring them to input it manually, we now employ voice recognition technology to identify our customers based on their natural speech patterns, which enables them to swiftly pass through the security measures by utilizing their voice signatures, which serve as a biometric element in the authentication process, and an additional security question. This voice signature provides our customers with a fast and secure authentication experience.

For 99 out of every 100 customers who choose to create a Voice Signature, this process is completed without any problems. We reduced our call durations by an average of 60 seconds in the calls we handled with the voice signature. Thus, we offered a faster experience to our customers. By commissioning the project, we successfully generated the voice signatures of 19,161 customers. As a concrete indicator of our success, we have saved 34,839 minutes in 69,679 calls thanks to this technology.

In 2023, we launched our Private Banking Service to be Provided via Customer Contact Center project to offer special transaction sets and expanded Customer Contact Center services to Private Banking and High Income Segment customers. With the project, we have established a private banking service line so that they can receive faster and customized service. Customers using this line can contact our representatives providing a VIP service.

With Real-Time Campaign Management, we have increased the diversity of transactions. This enables us to provide the service that our customers need and are interested in at the right moment and in the fastest way through the channel they carry out their transactions.

We have continued our campaigns to activate our Bank’s inactive customers in this period as well. Our goal is to acquire these customers and enhance their loyalty through campaigns that we shall conduct in the coming periods.

We aim to always offer the right products and services by anticipating the requirements of our customers through analytical studies. In this way, we increase the value of our customers and the operational efficiency of our Bank.

At the PSM (Payment Systems Magazine) Awards, organized to support innovative products and services aimed at the development of the finance sector and financial technology, we were awarded the Golden PSM Award in the “Best Infrastructure” category for Artificial Intelligence Supported Campaign Budget Optimization (Uplift Model with Machine Learning).

In light of our segmentation and product propensity models that we had completed, regularly monitored, and improved in the past years, we increased the diversity of products and services offered to our customers. In 2023, we added new ones to our analytical studies. We have completed our work to go down to the micro level in our segmentation models.

We completed and launched our machine learning-based deposit model, which we created to increase our deposit volume.

We determined and implemented branch targets to increase BusinessCard and Merchant product ownership for our customers in the retail segment by using artificial intelligence models in light of analytical data. We aim to expand our work in this regard in 2024.

In 2023, we have responded to 92% of the incoming submissions to our Bank.

Our customers can reach us and convey their observations through the customer contact center, Internet banking and mobile banking, branches, mail, corporate website, social media accounts, public organizations (such as BAT, BRSA, CİMER), and web-based complaint sites regarding our Bank’s products and services. We meticulously review all kinds of suggestions, complaints, and requests submitted to our bank in order to resolve them as soon as possible, and we respond to our customers according to their communication preferences.

Recognizing that establishing strong and lasting relationships with our customers is of utmost importance for the continuity of these relationships, we see every issue raised as an opportunity to improve ourselves and carry out improvement/development activities regarding our products and services in line with the data obtained.

We prepare monthly, quarterly, and annual reports on the number of applications and the activities carried out, and share them with both the Bank’s senior executives and auditor organizations, and organize quarterly meetings with wide participation to take the necessary decisions and actions regarding our development areas. Additionally, we attach importance to the highest level of monitoring of the issue with the presentations we make to the Audit Committee and the Board of Directors.

You can access our Bank’s Customer Satisfaction Policy on our website at https://www.vakifbank.com.tr/customer-satisfaction-policy.aspx?pageID=3996

We seek to efficiently manage the assets entrusted to us with the strength we receive from the foundation culture that forms our bank’s basis, with a transparent and ethical approach. With this approach, we strive to sustain the value we add to all our stakeholders and always commit to being on their side. For this purpose, we pursue our work with a comprehensive stakeholder ecosystem, aware of the necessity of effective communication with them. While working to include all of our internal and external stakeholders in our decision-making mechanisms, we ensure continuity in our relations with various communication mechanisms to make our dialogue permanent.

In 2023, we continued to strengthen our relations with investors or intermediary organizations and to keep them informed.

Effective communication with investors

In 2023, we held more than 150 meetings with some 250 investors/analysts face-to-face, or via teleconferences or video conferences. We attended 12 domestic and international investor conferences and webinars and held online/face-to-face meetings with over 200 national and international corporate investors. After the investor information conferences attended, we prepared reports in line with the investors’ information and presented them to the senior management. In close contact with all analysts who prepared reports on VakıfBank, we conveyed accurate and sound data to analysts during the reports’ preparation and provided feedback on their prepared information.

Interactive financial presentations

We prepared detailed presentations to declare the results of the financial statements. Due to the earthquake disaster on February 6, 2023, which deeply affected our country, we were unable to hold a teleconference to announce our first-quarter financial results. We presented the related financial data for the period in detail to analysts and stock/bond investors in 3 teleconferences organized via webcast. We made available the records of the teleconferences on the English page of our website.

Relations with Rating Agencies

We held annual assessment meetings with Moody’s, Fitch and JCR and provided detailed information on VakıfBank’s financial performance and strategies.