According to the statistics of the World Bank, approximately 70% of the population in Türkiye consists of people who have bank accounts. About half of this segment consists of people who are “semi-banking savvy”, that is, people who use 1 or 2 products in their relations with banks, make an average of 2 or fewer transactions per month, and who cannot really benefit from the services of the financial system.
As Akbank, we are aware that customers can be with limited access to financial resources, still have a preference of using physical channels for financial transactions, and/or have room for improvement in financial literacy. Akbank continues to make financial inclusion a part of its business model with expanding its products and services according to the needs and preferences of underserved groups within the framework of Ecosystem Management, one of the 4 focus areas of its sustainability strategy.
In this context, as Akbank, we continue our efforts to increase the number of individuals and institutions we financially empower by 2030. We have one of the largest ATM networks in Türkiye; we are easily accessible with 6315 ATMs spread over a wide geographical area.
FINANCIAL PRODUCTS & SERVICES
Women MSMEs and Women Entrepreneurs
In 2026, we aim to be the biggest supporters of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in their green transformation journey. In this context, we enable MSMEs to identify their status and areas of development with carbon footprint measurement and company ESG analysis applications. At Akbank, we are aware that financial health and inclusion are one of our most important areas of impact. In this context, as one of 28 banks worldwide, we are delighted to be a founding signatory of the UNEP FI Financial Health and Inclusion Pledge, which aims to promote financial health and inclusion in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI).
As a signatory to the first-of-its-kind initiative, Akbank has committed to regularly disclosing measurable targets and our performance in line with financial health and inclusion, over 18 months. In this context, we successfully achieved our target of reaching an annual 10% growth rate in the number of our women-owned SME customers by 2025. By taking our targets further, we aim to achieve a 10% annual growth, by 2030, in the number of women SME customers who gain access to at least one new financial product.
In line with the Sustainable Development Goals, and Türkiye’s 12th Development Plan, we aim to provide products that will encourage the sustainable growth of our women owned/managed MSME customers by increasing their financial resilience. We expanded our customer base with our financial and non-financial products and services increased the number of active women MSMEs by 11% in 2025 compared to the previous year. We have doubled our customer base and increased our loan balance by 8 times.
With the aim of switching to a mentoring model that will benefit more women entrepreneurs free of charge, we launched the BinYaprak Women Entrepreneur Mentorship Program with Turkishwin. In 2025, we were provided 200 women SMEs with free one-on-one mentorship through the "Binyaprak Women’s SME Mentorship Program" in collaboration with Turkishwin.
Akbank Women’s Platform
We believe that supporting women's empowerment in financial life and offering them new opportunities is extremely important. We also believe that the impact and strength of women in the financial world should be recognized and appreciated. Therefore, this year, we launched the “Akbank Women's Platform”, where we stand by women in their financial and social lives. Through this platform, designed specifically around women's needs, we provide access to 6 financial and 9 non-financial opportunities via Akbank Mobile. Through the Akbank Women Platform, we are pleased to add value to women's lives and support them on this journey with the solutions we develop.
Venture Banking
In the Technological Entrepreneurship Package, we support technology start-ups and ventures throughout all stages, from their establishment to global expansion, offering banking, non-banking, and growth-oriented support. This allows us to support potential ventures that are technology driven, innovative, and capable of creating added value. In 2023, we announced at our press conference that we had brought together a new generation service model for tech start-ups and entrepreneurs under Akbank's Entrepreneurial Banking. Through our new organizational structure, which includes dedicated customer representatives for start-ups, we provide services at 6 branches located in Istanbul, Ankara, and İzmir.
We initiated a strategic partnership with Ak Asset Management and Arya Investment Platform, preparing to offer end-to-end services to help start-ups strengthen businesses and expand into international markets. This allows entrepreneurs and tech start-ups to access all the necessary financial products, mentoring, networking, and consulting services from a single point of contact. Within this framework, we reached an agreement with Ak Asset Management regarding a venture capital fund of USD 20 million, which will include customers of Akbank's Entrepreneurial Banking as well. In collaboration with the Arya Investment Platform, we designed a system that enables Akbank's Entrepreneurial Banking customers to join a network of mentors and angel investors.
Together with the Arya Investment Platform, we organized a total of 14 events and programs, including 6 workshops, 2 academies, 2 mentor check-ups, 2 Investment Readiness Programs, and 2 Step Into events. To support startups operating within technoparks and techno-cities with their rent and R&D Project expenses, we have introduced a comprehensive süite of products, including chip-money support, preferntial virtual POS commission rates, dedicated budgets for payroll agreements, preferential commission rates on letters of guarantee, and interest-free Artı Para financing.
In the 7th round of the "Boost the Future" entrepreneurship acceleration program, organized in collaboration with Akbank and Endeavor Türkiye, we provided a comprehensive three-month mentoring and training program to 8.
In the 10th round of the CaseCampus Program, organized in partnership with Endeavor, 42 program graduates explored the entrepreneurship ecosystem througha a dedicated training program. Supported by rich content such as various events, case studies and interviews, the program inspired young people on their entrepreneurial journeys. The total number of CaseCampus Program graduates has reached 702.
Youth Banking
We are aware of the social and financial needs of young people in order to prepare them for the future in the best way and help them improve themselves in all areas. As Akbank, we consider young people under two different categories, namely “Those Who Are about To Start Out in Life” and “Those Who Have Just Started Out in Life”. We aim to increase the loyalty of groups by providing value propositions that meet different financial and social needs. We make sure that young people are informed about financial issues when they start out in life and that they can make the right decisions about their budgets. For this purpose, we continue to work intensively to increase the level of “financial literacy” so that young people can turn to the right-investments and savings. We continue to offer advantages for young people's first loan needs.
In 2020, we changed the name of the “Akbank FAV” program, which offers a digital experience for university students, to “Undergraduate Akbanker”, and we are facilitating the access of university students between the ages of 18-26 to financial transactions by offering them free banking transactions and free overdraft accounts. Over the past three years, our young customer base has grown 1,5 times, with the number of university students increasing 4 times.
Also, from a financial inclusion perspective, we achieved 2.5% annual growth in active young customers in 2025, and we aim to continue this growth.. In addition, our youth banking loans, loan amounts and the number of beneficiaries can be found in the Akbank Sustainable Finance Allocation Report
Our Accessible Banking Approach
We prioritize equal access to banking services for all our customers and continue our impactful collaboration with BlindLook, a social enterprise that develops technologies for the visually impaired. Thanks to BlindLook's voice simulation technology, our visually impaired customers can now navigate Akbank Mobile and Internet with greater ease. Moreover, through our efforts since 2023, we completed the integration process for accessible versions of all banking contracts and request forms on our website, available in both voice and sign language for our hearing and visually impaired customers.
Through the "Inclusive and Barrier-Free Communication" e-training, available to all bank employees, we continue to foster effective communication with our employees and customers with disabilities. Accessibility features for the disabled are available across all 646 of our branches.
OUR NON-FINANCIAL SUPPORT
Financial Literacy
Akbank Mobile “For You” offers a comprehensive structure that supports financial literacy through a natural user experience by combining banking services with themes related to customers' daily lives. The “My Expenses”, “My Home”, “My Car”, and “My Travel” categories gather information, transactions, and services for basic needs under one roof, helping everyone manage their financial lives more easily. Thus, banking becomes a more understandable and accessible support mechanism in the customers' daily lives.
Expanding our financial literacy mission, we introduced quiz content in the Akbank Mobile Story section to enhance financial knowledge. Through Microfon.co, Türkiye's largest education financing platform, we provide financial literacy training for young people and offer these trainings as a gift to our new customers. Additionally, in collaboration with FODER, we organize financial seminars for retirees and housewives, raising awareness on savings, wealth accumulation, and investment strategies.
TOSLA Application
Through the Tosla application of our subsidiary AkÖde, we continue to offer fast and accessible financial services to individual and corporate customers. Users can add their Tosla accounts to different banking and wallet applications and view their account transactions. In line with our sustainability vision, we continued to offer environmentally friendly solutions through digital card projects. With Tosla İşim, we provide solutions such as Virtual POS, Payment Link, Cash Register POS, and Credit Payment Gateway to meet the payment service needs of SMEs and businesses. In this way, we offer our customers an end-to end, flexible, and secure payment experience, contributing to the uninterrupted and sustainable support of commerce.
In 2025, we continued to enhance the financial services we offer to individual and corporate customers under the Tosla and Tosla İşim brands through digitalization, operational efficiency, and a strong governance approach. Thanks to digital cards and digital onboarding, we reduce resource consumption through paperless processes.
Transformation Academy
We established the Akbank Transformation Academy in order to digitalize and financially empower our SMEs. It supports our SMEs in financial and digital transformation with seminars, personalized training programs, and networking opportunities, helping them stay up to date with hot topics. In addition, thanks to the academy, all our SMEs can benefit from various training programs. We continued our training programs in 2025 to support our corporate clients, particularly SMEs. We have reached 21,000 SMEs and entrepreneurs since 2022. In 2025, we continued to provide our SMEs with a wide range of training and mentoring services, especially in the areas of green transformation, e-commerce, export and digital marketing, as well as discounted or complimentary access to certain products and services. In this way, we will help our SMEs become stronger and achieve their strategic goals.
Akbank+
We continue to offer our employees the opportunity to dedicate themselves full-time to entrepreneurial ideas through the “Akbank+ Program”, which is the first of its kind in Türkiye. This program protects the personal rights of our intrapreneurs while allowing them to work full-time on their ventures. During the 8-week incubation phase, 3 out of 6 ideas that progress through the “empathy”, “definition”, and “idea generation” stages move on to the MVP and testing phases in the 16 week second stage. Employees who successfully complete this program, which includes intensive training and mentoring sessions, have the chance to secure investment and launch their own companies.
By 2025, the total investment for start-ups developed by Akbank employees reached USD 2 million, and 31 Akbank employees earned the title of Innovation Ambassadors as part of the program. As of the end of 2025, we have introduced four start-ups to the ecosystem.
OUR CLEAN BANKING PRINCIPLES
Our bank operates in full compliance with legal regulations, ensuring that all transactions prevent any harm to customers, markets, and stakeholders. We adhere to Clean Banking principles to avoid unfair practices and maintain transparency in our banking activities. We take into account the vulnerabilities of our customers and provide our products and services in a fair, clear, and understandable manner. Additionally, we manage customer complaints effectively, prioritizing customer satisfaction.
Conduct Risk principles, providing necessary training to employees, targeting process and performance management, reward and punishment processes, campaign design processes, customer information before/during and after sales, new product/service design, evaluation and approval process, customer approval, after-sales rights, cancellation/refund processes and customer complaint management.
Care for Vulnerable Customers: Customers who are able to understand and use information about the content, returns and risks of banking products and services to a limited extent due to their age, health status, education level, income level and language of communication are defined as vulnerable. Additional attention is paid to vulnerable customers who are likely to be exposed to Conduct Risk.
For more detail, you can access our Conduct Risk Policy from this link: Conduct Risk Policy (akbankinvestorrelations.com)
Categories of Vulnerable Customers:
Education Level: Customers who cannot perform basic numerical calculations and lack financial literacy due to their educational level.
Health Status: Customers who cannot make timely and accurate decisions due to physical/mental conditions.
Income Level: Customers who cannot perform a sound financial assessment due to low income or financial burden.
Age: Customers with limited financial transaction experience due to their young age, resulting in vulnerability in evaluation competence.
Language Barrier: Customers who do not understand or speak Turkish at a level that allows them to comprehend banking services, returns, and risks.
In addition, our Academy Department organizes training sessions to ensure that Conduct Risk Principles are learned, understood, and applied across the bank. These trainings cover Conduct Risk Principles, cases that violate these principles, and examples of good behavior that could serve as benchmarks. The aim is to promote examples aligned with Conduct Risk Principles and prevent deviations.
In 2025, we continued our Clean Banking efforts, which we carry out to observe the interests of our customers as well as the legal regulations in the practices and conduct of our Bank and its employees towards customers. To manage Clean Banking within the framework of the principles determined in our Bank, to make this concept widespread across the organization, and to adopt it as a working principle, we have implemented many practices in the fields of corporate culture, training, communication, new product/service processes, and customer complaint management.
We continue to identify the areas of improvement and take action in these areas by measuring Clean Banking communication and awareness within the organization, with the help of a survey covering all our employees who come into contact with our customers.
We ensure that our bank complies with applicable anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws and regulations, clean banking, ethical principles, and universal rules, in all countries where it operates. We continue to work in full compliance with our obligations regarding the prevention of financial crimes. In order to avoid negative situations, we make sure to manage our relations with our stakeholders by paying attention to our Conflict of Interest Policy, to evaluate our customers, transactions, products and services with a risk-based approach, to determine our strategies, relevant control mechanisms and measures, operating rules, and responsibilities to reduce possible risks, and to raise awareness of all our employees on these issues.
You can access our Ethical Principles on our website: https://www.akbankinvestorrelations.com/en/corporate-governance/detail/Ethical-principles/29/8/0
STRATEGIC COLLABORATIONS
In 2021, as one of 28 banks worldwide, we are founding signatory of the UNEP FI Financial Health and Inclusion Pledge, which aims to promote financial health and inclusion in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI). For more information, you can access our target from this link: PRB-Fin-Health-progress-report-1.pdf (unepfi.org)
In 2021, as a signatory of The Valuable 500 initiative, we are the first bank and organization from Türkiye to join the global initiative. Through our corporate culture that is based on the principles of diversity and inclusion, we support the participation of people with disabilities in work life; gender equality and equal opportunities; women’s empowerment and volunteering activities, and equal opportunities in education. For more information, you can access our commitment from this link: AKBANK - The Valuable 500
In 2024, we are the only Turkish bank in the UN Women Gender Equality Working group, a collaboration between UNEP FI and UN Women to support the implementation of the UN Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB), the world's leading sustainable banking framework, in line with the UN Women's Empowerment Principles (WEPs) and other gender-related standards. The sustainable financing solutions and mentoring services our bank provides to women-led businesses and initiatives were recognised as ‘good practice examples’ in the guide published by the Working Group. UN Women - Advancing Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment
As Akbank, through our membership in the Financial Literacy and Inclusion Association (FODER), we remain committed to advancing financial literacy and ensuring broad access within the community.
FINANCIAL INCLUSION GOVERNANCE
Our bank's Sustainability Committee oversees our all Sustainability efforts including financial inclusion and deeply understands the importance of providing financial services that offer equal access to all segments of societyIn this regard, our efforts in financial inclusion are recognized as a strategic priority in achieving our sustainable development goals.