Turkcell overhauls mobile wallet; brings banks on board

09 October 2012 | 3474 views | 2 Nokia N9

Turkish telco Turkcell has overhauled its mobile wallet service, adding a feature that lets customers make payments at the point-of-sale by entering their phone number.

Launched last year, the SIM-based Cep-T Cüzdan service is available to all of Turkcell's 28 million subscribers, regardless of their handset.

Customers with NFC-enabled handsets have always been able to make contactless payments but the upgraded wallet now also lets them enter their phone number to complete transactions - both instore and online.

Subscribers can also make person-to-person payments through mobile numbers, without the need for a bank account; top up their airtime; get location-based offers; and, now, pay their utility bills.

Money is stored on a virtual pre-paid MasterCard but Turkcell has also struck deals with 13 banks - who join original partner Garanti - meaning that subscribers can add their bank cards to their mobile wallets.

Cenk Bayrakdar, chief new technology business officer, Turkcell, says: "Turkcell Wallet brings together the participating banks, MasterCard's secure infrastructure, and Turkcell's technology to combine mobile payment, mobile banking, and mobile loyalty programs in a single service to let our customers leave their wallets at home."

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A Finextra member | 10 October, 2012, 08:08

"...let customers leave their wallets at home" - and become dependent on battery capacity in modern electricity guzzler smart phones. Imagine that after spending 30 minutes a Friday night in a supermarket picking groceries into the trolley and another 10 minutes in a cash register check-out line just to experience the phone dead due to no power since you spent the last power talking to a colleague for 19 minutes while driving to the supermarket! I will keep my bankcard with me for convenient and secure payments.

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Ketharaman Swaminathan - GTM360 Marketing Solutions - Pune | 10 October, 2012, 16:42

AmEx spent millions to tell people, "Don't leave home without it!", referring to its plastic card. After all those years and millions of ad dollars, mobile wallet providers need to think of something more powerful than "leave home without it!" to make the man on the street adopt mobile payments.

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