How Kuveyt Türk is building the bank of the future—One insight at a time

Ahead of his presentation at the Qorus Reinvent Forum Dubai 2025, Mesut Polat, Group Head of Strategy at Kuveyt Türk Participation Bank, sat down with Boris Plantier from Qorus to discuss the major forces shaping the future of banking—from keeping the human touch in an increasingly digital world to AI, cybersecurity, and the race to attract top tech talent. He shares how he approaches these challenges and reveals his vision for the next era of banking.

Can you introduce yourself and also give a brief overview of Kuveyt Türk Participation Bank for those who may not be familiar with banks in the region?

I have been working at Kuveyt Türk Participation Bank since 2013. During my more than 10 years here, my career has been shaped around strategy, and I currently serve as the Group Head of Strategy. It is a significant source of motivation for me to be part of a business family where the institution's strategy is determined, its areas of concentration are decided, and its resources are allocated. During my time here, our bank has faced many different conditions, opportunities, and challenges. 

The banking sector in Türkiye is managed by very strict regulations. Under all these conditions, we strive to develop strategies that will ensure our bank progresses on an axis of sustainable growth and profitability. Our corporate governance approach—which prioritizes our bank's reaching the right target in the fastest and safest way with our living strategy vision—and our dedicated work culture play a significant role in implementing our strategy.

Kuveyt Türk is a pioneering participation bank established in Türkiye in 1989, based on interest-free banking principles, adopting a profit-loss sharing model instead of interest in its banking transactions. Established as part of a strong financial structure under the umbrella of Kuwait Finance House (KFH), Kuveyt Türk has reached an asset size of USD 29.3 billion today. We lead participation finance in terms of our asset size, collected funds, and provided financing. We are also positioned as one of Türkiye's top 10 largest banks in terms of asset size. As of today, we offer solutions for all end-to-end financial needs of customers, not just banking, with 12 subsidiaries within the Kuveyt Türk Finance Group.

The foundation of Kuveyt Türk's consistent growth success since its establishment lies in its customer-oriented and innovation-prioritizing management structure. We are one of the first institutions that come to mind when gold banking is mentioned in Türkiye; we have offered our customers the most innovative solutions in gold banking for many years. We are also the pioneering bank that enables our customers to access basic financial services free of charge by adopting a no-fee banking approach. We have taken care to increase our product diversity while adhering to interest-free finance principles. We have always managed to keep the customer experience at the highest level with our success in digitalization and our ability to adapt to technology. Our many innovative banking practices have brought Kuveyt Türk to a leading position in participation finance and positioned it among the largest banks in the sector.