Istanbul, Turkey – Denizbank has joined Turkcell’s Cep-T Cuzdan platform enabling its customers to make contactless payment with their handsets using Near Field Communications (NFC) technology. At the same time patients in Turkey with chronic diseases are finding their care controlled by Turkcell’s Smart Health solution.
Denizbank, which aims to differentiate itself with innovative and technologically-advanced products and services, has launched NFC-based payment options to enable its customers to make contactless payments via their mobile phones. Using Turkey’s first offline, no name pre-paid card, Denizbank customers can apply via SMS to start shopping with their pre-paid cards.
With this new application, all Denizbank customers can shop without a password in what is said to be an easy, fast, and secure manner using their mobile phones worldwide, wherever MasterCard PayPass (contactless payment) is accepted.
Having underlined Turkcell’s history of firsts in the area of mobile financial services, chief new technology business officer, Cenk Bayrakdar commented, “We have started a new era in shopping through Cep-T Cuzdan, which is one of the world’s first commercial NFC Services. In converting physical wallets to (the) mobile world, Cep-T Cuzdan presents Turkcell customers with the ease of contactless mobile payment in a secure and practical manner, and enables them to experience the advantages of mobility. Through this co-operation, we are glad to introduce Denizbank customers to the convenience of Cep-T Cuzdan.”
Murat Celik, chief digital age banking officer at Denizbank added that, “Denizbank, closely monitoring developments in the banking sector, following up on the innovations in other industries, and using new technologies in its products and services, will transfer credit cards onto SIM cards via the NFC system at no cost to the customer. During this process,” he said, “we took into consideration the increasing attention on NFC and potential needs of our customers. Indeed, Denizbank will continue to build on its innovative approach going forward.”
Patients with chronic diseases can now be monitored with Turkcell’s Smart Health solution
In a separate development Turkcell (NYSE: TKC, ISE: TCELL), in collaboration with the Istanbul University Medical School, aims to improve the lives of millions of chronic patients with its Turkcell Smart Health solution. This will enable the remote tracking and recording of health measurements for 500 chronic diabetes patients, around the clock, at any time and in any place. The system will send SMS notifications to physicians in the event of a serious deterioration in health.
Turkcell Smart Health Solution is composed of a gateway; Turkcell SağlıkMetre, reading patients’ measurements via Bluetooth from medical devices and delivering this data to the doctor. At the touch of a button this information is sent across a GSM network through the embedded M2M SIM card in the device, and SağlıkTakip, an internet-based health monitoring system, enables doctors to follow and analyse measurements coming from patients.
The health gateway Turkcell SağlıkMetre enables the tracking of five different chronic diseases (diabetes, cardiac arrhythmia, hypertension, asthma, and COPD or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). Turkcell SağlıkMetre, whichhas been developed by Turkcell Technology engineers using local resources, allows patients of all ages with these chronic diseases to deliver health data to their doctors. This is also claimed to be one of the first end-to-end solutions enabling the following of two patients on a single device.
The Turkcell Health Monitoring System aims to improve the quality of patient care and the patients’ quality of life, by ensuring continuity of care and follow-up with the doctor. It enables more patients to receive a higher quality service, and can prevent complications, while increasing productivity and reducing health sector costs.
Turkcell CEO, Sureyya Ciliv commented, “As Turkcell, we developed a device that will increase the life quality of millions of chronic patients, even saving lives, and ensuring that state and private hospitals and home care agencies will provide a higher quality and closer service for more patients while saving on the treatment expenses of the chronically sick. Turkey’s Turkcell and Turkey’s most prestigious university have together launched a new era in Turkey in the health arena, relying purely on domestic infrastructure and resources. We hope this study sets an example both for companies engaged in technology as well as in the health sector, and that mobile health applications that add value to human life swiftly become widespread in use.”
Turkcell is one of the leading communications and technology companies in Turkey, with 34.5 million subscribers and a subscriber market share of roughly 53% at the end of 2011. Turkcell is also a leading regional player, with market leadership in five of the nine countries in which it operates with its approximately 64.8 million subscribers.
The mobile network operator covers approximately 88% of the Turkish population through its 3G network and 99.13% through its 2G network. It was one of the first global operators to implemented HSDPA+ and achieved a 43.2 Mbps speed using the HSPA multi-carrier solution.
