Executive DenizBank Digital Generation Banking Vice President Murat Çelik explained Denizbank's initiatives in innovative banking, focusing on making the lives of customers more convenient. "Banking applications, which gained more importance with the growth of digitization in banking, offer many benefits for user and customer experience as well as speed, security, efficiency and cost advantage," he said.How would you evaluate current trends in the increasingly digitized banking sector and the response of customers to that trend?

Technological developments in the banking sector have resulted in significant outcomes for customer satisfaction and benefits in addition to increasing efficiency in the sector. Turkish banks heavily invest in digitization, and banks that do not exert the required efforts in this respect face the danger of elimination. Intense competition in today's economic circumstances forces banks to develop new strategies to carry them to a better level. Therefore, technology and innovation underlie these strategies. Banking applications, which gained more importance with the growth of digitization in banking, offer many benefits for users and customers as well as speed, security, efficiency and cost advantage.Customers besides banks also tend to follow technological trends and immediate access to information. Millennials, in particular, who are considered the future of banks and never have enough of what they already have, set the trends in technology and the digital world and rapidly consume content. Accordingly, companies and technology firms in the banking industry must adapt to the new generation as quickly as possible, closely follow digital developments and then channel them into their business processes.What are some of the initiatives you introduced to the area of innovative banking?

As DenizBank, we turned our route to the digital area long ago and were rewarded with prestigious national and international awards in return. We renewed our entire technology in 2004 with the motto "New Route 2004" and started using website-based technology. As one of the pioneering banks that made innovation part of its corporate culture along with its employees, we established our Digital Generation Banking Department in 2012, which was a first in Turkey. That is how we managed to be a "first" and "unique" worldwide bank by offering many innovative products in digital and mobile banking, following new trends and increasing customer needs. As a breakthrough, we opened a branch on Facebook, lent loans on Twitter and received loan applications via SMS. We did not stop with these innovations and developed our mobile payment system fastPay, which opened new horizons in the banking industry. With our digital wallet application fastPay and thanks to the Internet of Things, beacon sensors and smart data, we are able to send special campaigns to customers, assign special discounts and have them make payments to merchants with beacon technology. We assign queue numbers to fastPay users who step inside our branches. We also offer a special, different and fast payment experience for our users from supermarkets to fuel oil, restaurants to transportation with promotions. Besides, with our mobile application Deniz Shell, which will soon replace our customers' "wallets," we make life easier for them by keeping their business cards, pictures and cards and passwords.What are your future plans for innovation?By expanding the services that we offer to our customers, we will make their lives more convenient - not just in financial services - but in many areas and make them feel that we are beside them. Meanwhile the "customer," who is our focal point, will guide our way in our innovative solutions in technology. As DenizBank, we will continue to develop solutions to meet the dynamic needs of our customers in the digital segment.