Turkish FinTech companies made record-level participation in the fair, where FinTech developments around the world were followed closely

2023 is a year in which we experience the happiness of the 100th anniversary of our Republic and the excitement of entering a new century with an even stronger vision.

Since the opening of our economy abroad in the 1980s, we have increased our exports, developed our capacity in the industry, and become a country that sells more than 4000 products to more than 200 countries. In the last 20 years, investments made in energy, the defence industry, healthcare, transportation, and many other fields have provided us with significant infrastructure. Using this infrastructure, our goal is to achieve Türkiye of the future even stronger than today.

In recent years, we have witnessed significant transformations affecting the whole world. The increasing importance of supply chains as a result of the Covid-19 epidemic, the risks of being dependent on a single source, the accelerating digital transformation, the green transformation due to the European Green Deal, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the increasing importance of energy and food supply are the most obvious indicators of the changing world. We have restructured our business processes in line with all these developments and transformations.

We will surely be facing global and geo-economic developments in the upcoming period. We are aware of many factors that may threaten the global economy, such as climate changes, geopolitical tensions, regional conflicts, global trade wars, and cyber security. These issues may bring additional risks to the current deadlocks of the world, however, we should not forget that new opportunities will surely arise. We must make the most of these opportunities at the global level.

On the other hand, as a country, we went through a very painful experience, which we call the “disaster of the century”. Our continued growth despite the devastating impact of this disaster also shows the strength of Türkiye against economic vulnerabilities.

As DEİK, we draw our strength from our 97 founding and corporate members and our volunteer members. We play an active role in helping our businesses, which we encourage to expand abroad, in the process of adaptation to the transformations required by the new global order.

We maintain our activities in an even more intense manner with our identity as the pole star of the Turkish business world, our Business Diplomacy mission, our Digital Technologies Business Council that we established last year to make our country the new centre of digital technologies, and our committees that we established for 9 prominent sub-sectors in the field of digital technologies.

In recent months, the Financial Technologies (FinTech) Committee of our Digital Technologies Business Council established the DEİK Pavilion at the Money 20/20 Fair, known as the world’s largest financial technologies organization. The leading FinTech companies of Türkiye, namely Colendi, Figopara, Kolaybi, Secure Future, Innovance, OBSS, TRA Tech, and Fimple took part in our Pavilion at Money20/20 Fair held in Amsterdam between June 6-8, 2023. United Payment, Papara, Veripark, Paycell, and Dgpays also represented our country by setting up stands at the fair.

As DEİK, we draw our strength from our 97 founding and corporatemembers and our volunteer members

Turkish FinTech companies made record-level participation in the fair, where FinTech developments around the world were followed closely. With the DEİK Pavilion of the Financial Technologies (FinTech) Committee under Digital Technologies Business Council, we aimed for Turkish companies to share information, hold bilateral meetings to market their products and systems, introduce our FinTech sector, which is much more developed than many other countries, and increase exports in the field of FinTech.

Having attended with our local FinTech companies, we left our mark on the Money20/20 Fair as the Turkish business world. We strengthened our network by utilizing the opportunity to introduce ourselves to hundreds of companies at the fair hosting over eight thousand participants. I believe that being here is a very significant move for introducing FinTechs in our country to the world. It is very important to introduce FinTechs in our country in the global arena to sign great business partnerships.

We made our cover interview with Ahmet İhsan Erdem, General Manager of Istanbul Finance Centre, in this issue of our Business Diplomacy journal, which deals with the theme of finance and the power of information in-depth. This issue of our journal also includes the evaluation of global e-commerce by Murat Erdör, CEO of Me Consultancy, and the analysis of crypto assets by Nurullah Mahmut Dündar, Lecturer at Medipol University. In the evaluations we made with our valuable scholars and business people, we included opinions on many subjects such as financing types, digital currencies, and ChatGPT.

Enjoy your reading.

President of DEİK, Nail Olpak.