History

The Interbank Card Center (BKM) was established in 1990 with the partnership of 13 public and private Turkish banks for the purpose of providing solutions to the common problems and developing the rules and standards of credit and debit cards in Turkey, within the card payment system.

The capital stock of the company as of August 2014 was 14 million TL.
The interbank clearing of the debts and credits of the card holders arising from their purchases is carried out within BKM’s structure through the domestic clearing and settlement of debit and credit card transactions. The main activities of BKM are; carrying out the authorization operation between the banks, developing the procedures applicable to the banks in the credit card and debit card sector, forming the domestic rules and regulations, making efforts in relation to provision of standardization and taking the relevant decisions, establishing relations with the international organizations and commissions and representing the members in these organizations when necessary and executing the ongoing bank operations from a single central operation site in a more secure, fast and cost-effective manner.

In 1993, the Switch System was initiated with the aim of settling inter-bank domestic credit card and debit card authorization, opening the ATM and POS system networks of the Turkish banks to the service of the customers, providing connection to the international communication networks such as Visa Base I and Europay EPS-NET from single point, and enabling clearing of the debit cards issued by the Turkish banks. Following activation of the advanced-technology-product second phase of BKM Switch System in 1999, the operational capacity was significantly increased compared to the former system and our members were provided with uninterrupted service with full productivity.