Business World in Turkey magazine, which celebrated its third anniversary last month, presented its readers with a full content in its December issue. In this issue; The name that appeared on the cover of the December issue of Business World in Turkey magazine, which focuses on many topics from electric cars to resilient cities, from jewelery to COP28, which has been on everyone's lips lately, is Mehmet Tevfik Nane, who has achieved many important successes in the skies. In an exclusive interview with the magazine, Nane gave clues about the topics underlying his success.
Business World in Turkey magazine, which has met with business people in six separate meetings so far with Court Chats, held a meeting under the title of "Digital finance" on Wednesday, November 29; Former Undersecretary of Treasury and Foreign Trade Tevfik Altınok, Turkish Payment and Electronic Money Institutions Association (TÖDEB) Board Member Erdal Özcan, Fintech Istanbul Founding Partner Prof. Dr. Selim Yazıcı brought together Envoyo Sales and Marketing Director Almila Demirdağ, Demokrat Yatırım Menkul Değerler Deputy General Manager Özlen Bilgin and Cryptocurrency Expert Oytun Es around the same table.
Celal Toprak, Editor-in-Chief of Business World Magazine in Turkey, who moderated the meeting, stated that these meetings were a friendly assembly and used the following expressions; “Today we are having the sixth Court Conversations. Our topic today is 'Digital finance'. We have brought together many sectors in this meeting series we have held so far. This concept of ours is actually a bit out of business. Because our meetings are held in the atmosphere of a friendly meeting, where everyone sincerely shares the problems they experience in their sector and their solution suggestions. We share the outputs we obtain from here in both our newspaper and magazine. We are organizing this entire organization in cooperation with Destek Patent.”Referring to the relationship between digital finance and patents, Destek Patent Chairman of the Board of Directors, Kemal Yamankaradeniz, made the following evaluation about fintechs; “Nowadays, financial technology is developing. It needs to be protected with a patent, especially for those who want innovation to be valued. In today's world where digitalization has reached a new level, patent protection must be accelerated. As Türkiye, we are very good at fintechs. "The fact that they can be opened to the world shows that fintechs are at an important stage in terms of both technology sales and capital inflow to the world, and the protection of fintechs with patents and the protected technologies being used as financial instruments in the world."
Evaluating the companies' perspective on patents, Yamankaradeniz said; “In order to obtain a patent, inventions, innovation and R&D studies must be carried out quickly. Although we, as Turkey, have sufficient numbers of industrial studies, R&D and trained manpower, unfortunately we have not yet exceeded 10 thousand in the number of patent applications. What needs to be done to increase this number is very clear; We have more than 220 thousand technical personnel working in R&D. These 220 thousand people can actually do revolutionary work because the development of the technology in question means the development and development of the country's economy. Years ago, TÜBİTAK supported domestic patent applications, but in recent years it has made a regulation on this issue in order to make patents more qualified. It removed the support given to patent applications made within Türkiye. With the increase in support in this regard, SME enterprises will also be able to obtain patents. "At the same time, as TÜBİTAK, the support given to academics, that is, universities, and the registration of patents obtained by universities in Turkey will pave the way for the growth of this field," he said.
“Preparing legislation is not a simple matter”
Former Undersecretary of Treasury and Foreign Trade Tevfik Altınok conveyed information about the legislation based on his past experiences as follows; “Preparing legislation is of course important, but the management that will prepare the legislation must first be run by qualified people.
'Which of the finance-related institutions such as BRSA, SDIF and Central Bank will we regulate? Will banks do this? Will BRSA or CMB step in, or will they build a joint venture?' Questions such as these are important issues in this sense. For example, there is no institution within the Ministry of Finance that mentions treasury, it is only mentioned in its name. Preparing legislation is not a simple event, if I had to explain it in detail; Article 167 stipulates that all issues related to markets must be based on a law while regulating them. I remember the Kastelli incident that broke out in the eighties, we transformed the legislation on this incident that I knew very well. We seized the seized institutions and organizations. We were looking for the answer to the question of how we will manage. I became the head of the treasury at the insistence of Turgut Özal Bey. We had the Istanbul Stock Exchange, but our structure regarding securities was zero. When we saw that the Stock Exchange was of no use, we asked for help from the IMF. So, we started working in 1980 and founded CMB in 1982. This is how the legislation is being prepared now.”
“The banking sector is evolving”
Fintech Istanbul Founding Partner Prof. Dr. Selim Yazıcı; “I have been a faculty member at Istanbul University for 30 years. In 2016, we established a platform called Fintech Istanbul. "We are trying to gather everything in the field of financial technology under one roof in Turkey and promote it both in Turkey and abroad," he said.
Talking about the evolution of the banking sector, Yazıcı said, “I sometimes ask my senior students, 'Does anyone want to be a banker?' I ask. This year, no hands were raised in the class of a hundred people. "I don't know whether this should scare the sector, but I can say that banking is in the process of evolving," he said.
Pointing out that there are issues that put exporters in trouble in Turkey, Yazıcı said, “Overseas is a separate issue because different issues of legislation come into play there, but in Turkey there is also the issue of checks. The digitalization of checks will seriously pave the way for trade. Even in this, there are still issues that remain untouched in the legislation. There is a method widely used in the world called “Buy now, pay later”. When I talked to the owner of a very large company that entered Turkey 1.5 - 2 years ago, his goal was; He said that there are 18 million people over the age of 15 who have never been to a bank and do not have a credit card in their pocket. "If you look at it today, Turkcell is aiming for this in Paycell," he said.
“The stock market is a stable investment tool for conscious investors”
"Dinamik Yatırım Menkul Değerler Deputy General Manager Özlen Bilgin said, "Dinamik Yatırım Menkul Değerler started its investment life as Demokrat Menkul Yatırım Değerler A.Ş., with the change of hands of Egemen Menkul Değerler, which has been operating since 1990, in 2019, taking the name of Dynamic. At Dynamic, we are currently focusing on the digital side. We have a new application called DİHAP. This application; It will be an application where you can invest in both foreign markets and domestic markets at the same time. "We will launch it very soon," he said.
Stating that this application, which can be used by everyone, mainly appeals to young people, Bilgin continued his words as follows; “Anyone who is interested in foreign markets and wants to invest in domestic markets can use this application, but I can say that the application appeals more to young people. All users who want to invest both on BIST and NASDAQ will be able to make transactions from this application. The market has gone through a very turbulent period and continues to do so. For this reason, we are not at the points we want in the stock market. People's interest in the stock market continues. Istanbul Stock Exchange has reached more than 8 million investors so far. Unfortunately, these numbers are not very healthy. This figure also includes small investors brought by the public offering and investors using very high interest rates. “The stock market is a very stable investment tool if used by conscious investors.”
