With companies around the world changing the way they do business in the digital age, banks and bankers are no exceptions. Now, thanks to some innovative ideas, finance and banking are also becoming a part of the consumers' digital habits.
Yalçın Sezen, deputy general manager of Turkey's İş Bank, said that for them the digital life culture was a new area of social engineering. He also pointed out that supporting entrepreneurs will give them new capabilities.
He said that İş Bank was supporting aspiring entrepreneurs in various departments, including office, mentorship, finance, marketing and compliance through its Workup Enterprise Program, which was launched two months ago.
"While supporting entrepreneurs, we are trying to catch up with global changes in the sector.
"Through our Workup project, we are able to back technology-based enterprises. We've restructured İş Bank to offer a more customer-centric experience," Sezen said.
"By backing digital enterprises, which can easily adapt to changing social habits, we are also able to adjust to the new lifestyle
"Guiding technology based enterprises that will play a role in the digital transformation as well as bring in the right people with the right ideas and mentor them, are part of the Workup program's mission," he added.
Those not attuned, loseRevealing that they support businesses in different sectors, Sezen said the transformation they have observed over the months were enough to change the classical business habits.
"If you have the opportunity to buy cinema tickets anywhere other than the box office, it would change your paying habits. It is important that we study the changing ways of doing business and all the financial institutions should catch up with the newest developments in the sector," he said.
"In all sectors including law, education, health and travel, digital trends are playing a major role in changing the habits. In such an environment, we need more cooperation. In this context, enterprise programs have a very important role in the supporting economy," Sezen said.
They seek mentorship
The enterprises, part of the İş Bank initiative, get an opportunity to become integrated into the Kolektif House ecosystem that consists of investors, legal experts and designers.
Meanwhile, Hackquarters, the Enterprise Accelerator of the Workup program, also specializes in mentorship, educations on law, finance, marketing and presentation.
The program kicked off with just 10 enterprises but has continued to pick up new members.
In order to be able to expand the businesses in a viable way, the members received volunteer mentorship educations from Ömer Erkmen and other experts in finance, law and media.
Workup enterprises ranged between everything from pet foods, house rents to finance solutions.
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