TURKEY'S GARANTI BANK PUTS ROLLOUT ON HOLD

摘要

Garanti Bank, one of Turkey's largest banks, also is one of Europe's most innovative financial institutions when it comes to using chip technology. It was among the first to convert its credit cards fully to the EMV smart card standard a few years ago and, even before that, moved its popular loyalty program, Bonus, to chips. So when Garanti in June of 2006 announced it was launching a large contactless payment trial with prospects for an aggressive expansion within three months, it looked promising that Turkey could be the site of Europe's first rollout of contactless payment. Sixteen months later, that rollout is on hold, with Mehmet Sezgin, head of Garanti's Payment Systems unit, still looking for a way to justify the cost of issuing contactless cards more broadly to his base of nearly 6 million Bonus credit cardholders.