1. Sustainable Customer Relations Management: Ziraat Bank considers its customers as key players in the journey to achieve sustainability.

Always standing by its customers, Ziraat Bank develops its products and services in line with customer needs and expectations. Standing out among the competition with its high customer loyalty rate, the Bank implements international banking standards across all its product and service channels, and builds long term bonds with customers via its corporate communication channels, based on transparency and product responsibility.

New Products for Different Customer Segments

Having developed numerous products and services for different customer segments in 2015, the Bank launched spot loan with periodic interest payment for corporate customers, and introduced the web site www.evinziraatten.com to inform retail customers about mortgage finance. The debit card Başakkart targets the agricultural sector, which has always been of great importance to Ziraat Bank; it is designed to meet the needs of Entrepreneur/Corporate segment customers in every aspect of commerce. As the Bank with the most extensive branch network in Turkey, Ziraat Bank added English, Russian and German language options to its queue management system in branches in order to further facilitate serving its foreign customers. In addition, the queue system was integrated with smart phones to enable customers to receive a queue number for the nearest branch or another branch of their choice via their mobile phones.

Top Priority: Excellent Customer Experience

Focusing on continuously developing the product and service offering for customers via different channels, Ziraat Bank continued in 2015 to enhance the functional features targeting corporate customers of its Internet Banking, ATM and Mobile Banking channels. A flexible limit structure was rolled out to enable Internet Banking customers to choose the limit definition (sum total and transaction number) best suited to meet their needs. In addition, various innovations were introduced to enable customers to online monitor the collection of their Ziraat Bank cheques and promissory notes and to close banks accounts via the call center.

Disabled Access to Financial Services

In order to facilitate disabled client access to financial services, Ziraat Bank initiated renovation efforts at over 200 branch locations in 2015. In addition, the Disability-Free Banking Support Package was launched to deliver disabled customers banking products with special advantages.

Ziraat Bank's Expanding Branch Network

Ziraat Bank continued to expand its branch network in 2015. The Bank inaugurated 112 new domestic branches and opened the Pristina branch in Kosovo, bringing the total number of its branches to 1,812 by year-end 2015. A new call center also opened in Samsun, expanding the Bank's capacity to deliver services outside the branch channel.

Always Standing by Its Customers

Ziraat Bank gives those customers who cannot repay their loans for various reasons the opportunity to repay their loans over a longer and more flexible maturity period and to finance their ongoing operations through new loans, so that they can recover their economic losses under convenient conditions.

Ziraat Bank makes a point of always standing by its customers. The Bank offered customers in the flood-stricken districts of Hopa, Borçka, Murgul and Arhavi the opportunity to restructure their Bank loans and postpone payments.

2. Institutionalized Business Processes: Ziraat Bank strides toward its goals with determined steps thanks to its institutionalized business processes.

Ziraat Bank aims to execute projects focused on adding value, with its organizational structure based on competence and success, and institutionalized business processes, without being affected by financial turmoil in domestic and international markets. Under the leadership of the CEO and with the coordination of the Strategic Steering Committee, comprehensive sustainability efforts are expended to maintain the Bank's competitive advantages.

Ziraat Bank has forged a strong synergy with rapidly growing Ziraat Finance Group's partnerships that are active in the domestic and international arenas.

End-to-End Digitalization in Business Processes

Ziraat Bank aims to establish end-to-end digitalization across its business processes in order to minimize the environmental footprint of its operations and to enhance productivity. The Bank continues work on integration projects with Türksat, TOKİ, Türk-Vet, the Association of Notaries, among other entities. In addition, work has been initiated to effectively integrate the business, data and transaction architecture and technology infrastructure under the Bank's corporate architecture.

3. Integrated Partnership Management: The Bank continuously bolsters the synergy between domestic and overseas partnerships and overseas branches in order to further strengthen Ziraat Finance Group.

As one of the biggest players in the Turkish banking system, Ziraat Bank has established robust synergy with the fast-growing Ziraat Finance Group partnerships, which operate in domestic and overseas markets. Ziraat Finance Group was further strengthened with the founding of Ziraat Participation Bank in 2015 and work continues on establishing Ziraat REIT.

The Biggest Turkish Bank Overseas: Ziraat Bank

Continuing its steady expansion internationally, Ziraat Finance Group was joined by banks in Azerbaijan and Montenegro in 2015. The Bank opened its Kosovo/Pristina branch in 2015 and is now the most extensive Turkish bank overseas with a service network encompassing 97 hubs in 18 countries.

Ziraat Bank has set the following goals for integrated partnership management:

• Gearing up activities in the countries where its partnerships and branches operate,
• Contributing to the development of economic and commercial ties between these countries and Turkey,
• Playing a major role and capturing a large share of foreign trade financing,
• Responding to the needs of Turkish investors in foreign countries,
• Delivering swift, high quality and solution-centered products and services to customers,
• Building an efficient strategy between the Bank, domestic subsidiaries and overseas, operations in line with the Ziraat Finance Group perspective.

4. Operational Excellence: Ziraat Bank shapes all its operations in line with the principles of operational excellence, based on international quality standards.

Well-known for its long corporate history as well as its innovative products and services, Ziraat Bank has shaped its organizational structure in accordance with the principles of competence and operational excellence. The top priorities within these efforts that are designed to deliver better quality services to customers are reducing the branch workload and boosting business process productivity.

Main Goal: Turning Branches into Financial Advisory Providers….

As part of its operational excellence efforts, Ziraat Bank started to deliver mortgage release fee services via its operations center, becoming the only bank in Turkey to centralize this transaction. In addition, the Bank launched QR code cheques, taking a significant step to eliminate cheque fraud risk. The Bank also continues efforts to centralize all transactions related to TOKİ. Another important project to reduce the branch workload relates to the centralization of loan operations. This project is scheduled for completion in 2016. In the same year, the Bank also plans to complete the e-archive initiative to store all archive documents related to Bank operations in digital format.

Operational Productivity Leads to Staffing Economies Equivalent to 3,754 Employees.

As a result of the operational productivity projects undertaken by all its business units, Ziraat Bank yielded staffing economies equivalent to 3,754 employees during the period 2012-2015. Thanks to productivity increases in this area, important human resources were allocated to the area of customer satisfaction.

5. Objective and Transparent Human Resources Function: Ziraat Bank renders its human capital competences sustainable thanks to objective and transparent human resources procedures.

Embracing a recruitment policy based on objective criteria of success, Ziraat Bank leads the industry with its highly competent and experienced workforce. One of Turkey's largest employers, the Bank organizes continuous training programs for its human capital and makes its competitive edge sustainable. A prominent brand in corporate banking training thanks to its Ziraat Banking School, Ziraat Bank creates a variety of alternative training schemes for employees through e-training and mobile training.

Assessment System Based on Competence

In order to measure its employees' target-based performance and to assess their competence to integrate it into their performance rating, Ziraat Bank has initiated the Competence Assessment System Project; identified the competences required for each position at branch, region and head office level; and designed training programs based on the results of performance and competence assessment processes.

The Competence Assessment System will go into service in 2016.

6. Efficient IT: In order to swiftly respond to customer needs and expectations, Ziraat Bank continues to invest in information technology relentlessly.

Due to the steady increase in its business volume and with a view toward managing its product and service diversity in an efficient and rapid manner, Ziraat Bank continued to invest in IT infrastructure and transformation in 2015. The Bank continued the modernization of its Data Center. As part of efforts to upgrade the banking software, important headway was made in terms of monitor simplification and ergonomics.

In 2015, in another project to establish an efficient IT infrastructure, the Bank continued work on the upgrade of the core banking software in line with the business model and Bank strategies. The first such monitors will be put into use in first quarter 2016.

7. Robust Balance Sheet: In line with its responsible banking approach, Ziraat Bank adapts a balance sheet management policy in accordance with its shareholders' equity.

Continuing to transform its balance sheet into a customer-oriented structure, Ziraat Bank embraces a cost management policy that will not constrain revenue increases. In order to boost resource diversity, the Bank extended its syndication loan in 2015, and completed work on the Corporate Cost Module toward the target of improving cost and inventory management.