CONTINUING TO GENERATE VALUE WITH THE PASSION TO OFFER MORE THAN BANKING

Ziraat Bank’s 2016 road map, which was shaped by economic, technological and social developments in line with 7 basic strategic goals, is implemented by all of its passionate employees.

Stevie AwardsZIRAAT BANK RECEIVED A SILVER AWARD IN THE “COMPANY OF THE YEAR” CATEGORY IN THE BANKING FIELD AT THE STEVIE INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS AWARDS. THE BANK WON THE FIRST PRIZE IN THE PUBLIC VOTE HELD WITHIN THE SAME CATEGORY.

In line with the transformation process that Ziraat Bank launched in 2012, the Bank focused its business model on continuous renewal with the principle of providing efficient and quality services. Within this framework, many infrastructural and cultural transformation projects have been put into practice. The Bank, which meets the financial needs of its customers within the scope of the Ziraat Customer Business Model, continues to spread its high value added service approach in an expanding geographical region with its extensive service network and domestic/foreign partnerships.

Ziraat Bank which sees change as an endless journey, continues to move ahead with the methodology that it designed uniquely. The Bank received a silver award in the “Company of the Year” category in the banking field at the Stevie International Business Awards, a prize platform in which more than 3,800 candidates from every sector from more than 60 countries participated, in acknowledgment of the methodology that it had developed for the transformation process. The Bank won the first prize in the public vote held within the same category.

Unwavering in developing its abilities with the principle of continuous development and continuing to acquire new abilities, Ziraat Bank has focused on creating a common business model by spreading this development to its affiliated companies and integrating the Ziraat approach into every region where it is located.

1. Sustainable Customer Relationship Management: Ziraat Bank focuses on establishing relationships with all its customers that create value and are sustainable.

In 2016, Ziraat Bank continued to provide and develop customized products and services by focusing on creating value for each customer to ensure the establishment of sustainable relationships with its customers and continued to shape service channels in line with the needs of its customers. New products, services and processes were developed in 2016 to meet the needs of customers from each segment with maximum added value.

Work on projects for the development of cash management products to be offered to customers in the corporate segment continued in 2016 and work related to the Discounted Direct Debt System (DBS), a derivative product of the DBS, was completed and offered to customers.

With the agreement signed among Ziraat Bank and the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) and the Credit Guarantee Fund (KGF) to provide business capital financing and bail-out support at affordable terms for SME-scale businesses, the “Breath Loans (Nefes Kredisi)” product was implemented. In order to help those young farmers who are entitled to receive a grant from the Young Farmers Program implemented by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock establish more profitable, efficient and sustainable businesses, the Young Farmer Credit was offered to customers engaged in agricultural activities. A “Machinery Equipment Loan Support Protocol” was signed between KOSGEB (Small and Medium Scale Enterprises Development Organization) and the Bank in order to provide financial support for the enterprises’ purchases of domestically produced and new machinery. With this protocol, customers could obtain credit at affordable interest rates.

In addition to the products developed for the real sector, the State Subsidized Dowry (Çeyiz) and the State Subsidized Housing Account products are offered to customers to promote saving among customers in the individual segment.

The “Pre‑approved Consumer Loan” product was implemented following a collective assessment from the Headquarter for customers who are paid a regular salary who do not have payment problems at Ziraat Bank and the other banks and who have permission to be contacted.

DigitalZIRAAT BANK CONTINUES ITS TECHNOLOGICAL INVESTMENTS IN NON-BRANCH CHANNELS WITH THE AIM OF HELPING CUSTOMERS CONDUCT THEIR TRANSACTIONS FROM DIGITAL CHANNELS MORE EASILY AND RAPIDLY.

Systematic developments have been implemented to enable the payment of installments for individual and TOKİ credit from ATMs, following work carried out to increase the variety of services offered from digital channels and to provide customers with the same user experience in all channels.

Technological investments in non-branch channels are continuing, with the aim of helping customers conduct their transactions from digital channels more easily and rapidly. The feasibility studies for the project, which is one of the important investments in this context, for renewing the ATM software and its equipment are now complete and the project is planned to be launched in the first quarter of 2017.

Work got underway on the renewal of channel front faces to provide customers with a common experience across all non-branch channels.

The development work on the corporate internet branch for corporate customers continued and work got underway on the corporate mobile branch.

The Bank is also carrying out multichannel integration, which aims to ensure that the financial needs of customers are met with the same level of quality as in all service channels and to create channels which are integrated with each other for this purpose. Work was completed on enabling customers to apply to the Bank’s products through digital channels. Customers could apply for the Consumer Loan, Credit Deposit Account, Vehicle Loan, Housing Loan and Credit Card products, as well as increases in their credit card limit, through non-branch channels.

The corporate website homepage has been restructured to provide quick access to products and services that are appropriate for the life cycle. To this end, studies continue to be carried out under the concept of Lifelong Banking, with sub-sites applied in “Children Savings in Ziraat”, “Young People’s Savings in Ziraat”, “Employee Savings in Ziraat” and “Pensioner’s Savings in Ziraat”.

Work is approaching completion on implementing the live chat application, which will customers solve problems they frequently encounter quickly and efficiently. The application is planned to be offered to customers in the first quarter of 2017.

Aware of its corporate citizenship, Ziraat Bank continues to integrate the principles of sustainability into business processes, taking part in environmental and people-focused work and projects.

2. Institutionalized Business Processes: Ensuring increased efficiency through the continuous improvement and development of business processes.

Aware of its corporate citizenship, Ziraat Bank continues to integrate the principles of sustainability into business processes, taking part in environmental and people-focused work and projects. Work focused on contributing to Turkey’s sustainable development is carried out under the leadership of Ziraat Bank’s CEO and in coordination with the Bank’s Strategic Guidance Committee. The Ziraat Bank 2015 Sustainability Report, which is prepared in full compliance with the comprehensive level of G4 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines, was published with the devoted efforts of all units.

The story book, “Başak and Her Magic Chest” was published on Ziraat Bank’s website in order to protect the hopes for our children who will shape the future and to inform them about the sustainability practices in 2016, which was a difficult year for our country and the world. The book will continue to be introduced to children in the coming periods.

As part of the digitalization efforts for business processes from end-to-end, Ziraat Bank is continuing its integration studies with outside institutions. In this context, integration work completed with TURKSAT enabled customers of the Bank to enter the e-Government portal with the internet banking password.

The TURK-VET system integration project was completed and put into practice in 2016 in order to be used in evaluating the credit demands of customers in the cattle feed and dairy farming activities. Integration work carried out with the Notaries Union of Turkey is continuing.

The target for 2017 is to complete the work that had been initiated to achieve process optimization by using barcoded document generation and reading flow in the Bank processes to create the central archive infrastructure.

In the corporate architecture area, work got underway to ensure the effective integration of business, data and application architectures with technological infrastructure. Work is underway to develop management systems that would integrate with Ziraat Teknoloji processes in order to model business processes and IT processes so that they could work together on a common platform in a compatible manner and to increase interaction by providing input to the software from the business processes.

Ziraat Bank continues to work towards the goals of increasing the number of branches in the regions it operates in and expanding its international service network by establishing new international branches or subsidiary banks in target markets.

3. Integrated Subsidiary Management: Progressing to the Ziraat Finance Group; the synergy between the Bank, domestic and international partnerships and international branches is constantly being improved.

Process Management WORK IS UNDERWAY TO DEVELOP MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS THAT WOULD INTEGRATE BUSINESS PROCESSES AND IT PROCESSES SO THAT THEY COULD WORK TOGETHER.

The ultimate goal of the large Ziraat family, which provides banking services on a global scale and has the capacity for a wide range of financial services with subsidiaries and affiliates around the world, is not only to offer banking services to customers but to meet all of the financial needs of customers with the Ziraat Customer Business Model through all the companies of the Ziraat Finance Group.

Ziraat Bank continues to work towards the goals of increasing the number of branches in the regions it operates in and expanding its international service network by establishing new international branches or subsidiary banks in target markets. In this context, those regions which have deep-rooted historical and cultural ties with Turkey and where there are Turkish investors, or which offer potential for investment, stand out as the target markets for the Bank. Within the scope of the work that has been conducted for expanding the Group abroad, the Marneuli Branch in Georgia and Bahrain Branch in Bahrain began banking activities in 2016. Ziraat Bank’s operations at 99 locations in 19 countries at the end of 2016 and is positioned as the Turkish Bank with the widest network abroad.

In 2016, Ziraat Real Estate Investment Trust Company (Ziraat REIT) began operations and joined the Ziraat Finance Group.

In line with Ziraat Bank’s international banking strategy and vision, work on the restructuring of the “Ziraat Finance Group” continues in order to increase its effectiveness in the countries where its partnerships and branches operate, to contribute to the development of commercial and economic relations between these countries and Turkey, to play a strong role and take a high share in the financing of foreign trade, to respond to the banking needs of Turkish investors in the country, to provide fast, high quality and solution focused products and services to customers and to create synergy between the Bank, domestic subsidiaries and the regions where the Bank is located.

As part of Ziraat Bank’s renewal of basic banking systems in the foreign branches, new banking software was introduced to branches operating in Bulgaria in the second quarter of 2016. Work on the main banking software, which started in 2014 with the partnership of the Bank in Germany, was completed in the first quarter of 2016 and put into practice in the German branches. Ziraat Bank will continue its efforts to renew the main banking systems of its foreign branches and subsidiaries.

4. Operational Excellence: Ziraat Bank is a bank that can quickly adapt to technology and has digitized and centralized its operations at a high level.

ZIRAAT BANK CONTINUES TO WORK ON THE RESTRUCTURING OF THE ZIRAAT FINANCE GROUP IN ORDER TO CREATE SYNERGY BETWEEN THE BANK, DOMESTIC SUBSIDIARIES AND THE REGIONS WHERE THE BANK IS LOCATED.

Ziraat Bank continued its process improvement work and pressed ahead with efforts to centralize the processes so Ziraat Bank’s branches would serve as offices where appropriate products and product packages are presented based on customer needs, reducing the operational workload on the branches.

The centralization of processes for TOKİ transactions was completed in the third quarter of 2016. The project, launched to ensure the centralization of fund-originated loans where the resource doesn’t belong to the Bank, loan disbursement and collections mediated by the Bank, is aimed to be completed in 2017.

Work to centralize credit operations also continued in 2016. In the process, which started with the centralization of contract entries, credit guarantee entries began to be submitted from the center from 2016. Work on the centralization of the loan disbursements is planned to be completed in 2017.

The e-archive project, which ensures that all kinds of documents produced as well as those acquired during the activities of the Bank and which have archive value are stored securely while being easily accessible in the electronic environment, was completed. Electronically archiving the documents provided contributed to the Bank through financial savings and operational efficiencies, while improving the security of information and documentation.

As a result of the efforts to establish operational efficiency by providing automation in the operations carried out in branches, regions and General Directorate, manpower savings amounted to 4,346 staff between 2012 and 2016.

Selected as the most popular bank to work in by Economics and Administrative Sciences students in The Ideal Employer Survey conducted by Universum and HBR (Harvard Business Review) Turkey, Ziraat Bank remains the center of attraction for young talent with its renewed business model and the opportunities that it offers.

5. Objective and Transparent HR Management: Ziraat Bank has become a center of attraction for new talents while developing talented individuals to sustain the Ziraat Customer Business Model.

Work on extending the scope of the performance management system was completed, by including the sales units of the General Directorate to strengthen the customer focused business model, instilling a sales and efficiency oriented work understanding, motivating employees to increase their corporate loyalty and rewarding individual achievements which are compatible with the Bank’s corporate objectives.

Competencies have been determined for branches, regional offices and General Directorate units on a position basis within the scope of the Competency Evaluation System project, which was initiated in order to evaluate the competencies of the employees as well as their target based performances and to integrate them into the performance points. The system was put into practice in the last quarter of 2016.

In 2016, work was completed on distance learning and mobile training to deliver information to users rapidly and at a low cost and to step up e-training and mobile training programs to provide employees with access to information at any time and the Ziraat Mobile Training application was implemented.

Selected as the most popular bank to work in by Economics and Administrative Sciences students in The Ideal Employer Survey conducted by Universum and HBR (Harvard Business Review) Turkey, Ziraat Bank remains the center of attraction for young talent with its renewed business model and the opportunities that it offers.

The Ziraat Banking School, which has become an institutional brand in banking education, continues to train young bankers in line with the Bank’s vision and strategies. Assistant Specialists trained in the school before graduating from the school to embark on their career at the Bank in 2016.

6. Effective IT: Ziraat Bank gains the maximum benefit from the opportunities brought by technology, helping the Bank gain a competitive advantage.

Ziraat Bank continues to deploy technology to develop its business model so that it will gain a competitive advantage and to build modern infrastructure systems. Renewal work on the Bank’s data center, initiated during 2014, continued in 2016. The construction of the data center was completed and the process of moving to the new data center has begun, with the move expected to be complete by the second quarter of 2017.

One of the most important investments in the field of information technology in 2016 was the steps taken to change the main banking software. The new software, which is planned to be extended to international branches in the medium term through the Ziraat Finance Application, consists of two important components; the Key, a main banking application and Focus, a work flow application. While work on the infrastructure continues, the screens and processes to be used by bank assistants have been significantly revamped with the new software.

Backed by the new infrastructure, Ziraat Teknoloji’s business model also started to be transformed with agile project management processes and a model was developed in which business units and technology teams would work more closely. Under the new model, a user experience lab was established, where design screens could be designed in the context of user experience analysis.

7. Strong Balance Sheet: As Ziraat Bank’s balance sheet continues to evolve into a customer-focused structure, expense management is being implemented in a way that does not prevent revenue growth.

Data CenterRENEWAL WORK ON THE ZIRAAT BANK’S DATA CENTER, INITIATED DURING 2014, IS EXPECTED TO BE COMPLETED BY THE SECOND QUARTER OF 2017.

Within the scope of the work carried out to increase the resource diversity, a USD 1.1 billion syndication loan was renewed in 2016, while USD 500 million of Eurobonds were issued. In addition, a loan agreement with the European Investment Bank (EIB) was signed for the financing of SMEs and larger firms for the second EUR 100 million tranche of the EUR 200 million of financing.

Work got underway to model the credit risk with the Basel III Based on Internal Rating (IRB) approach.

A corporate expense management module, which would ensure more effective expenditure and inventory management and bring cost advantages, was also set up. Work on developing the module continues.