Ozan SuperApp CEO Ömer Suner’s interview with Daily Cumhuriyet | Apr 2022
We have interviewed Ömer Suner, CEO of London-based Turkish fintech Ozan SuperApp.
Although we have developed world-class technologies in the fintech (financial technology) sector, Turkish fintechs have not yet been able to receive worldwide investment. Ozan SuperApp CEO Ömer Suner said, “Unfortunately, our banks do not expand abroad although they have the financial and technical means for that. This hinders us from creating the large-scale economy needed in the investment world, leading to less or delayed investments.”
Ömer Suner, CEO of Ozan SuperApp that set out to break the bad luck of Turkish fintechs, who have not received the attention they deserve on a global scale despite their advanced technical features, shared the experience and goals of the company.
Turkey is a very successful country in the fintech industry. How do you see our fintech industry compared to global players?
The Turkish banking system is one of the most advanced and technological systems in the world. If you ask me, we are the number one in terms of banking technologies in the world. Our banks are very successful on a global scale in the production of mobile and online technologies.
INTERNATIONAL EXPANSION IS PRIORITY
Although Turkish fintechs have many important accomplishments, they do not enjoy much investment as their global counterparts. What is the reason for this?
The main reason is that we do not attempt to expand our businesses from the Turkish market into international markets. This also goes for our banks. Unfortunately, our banks do not expand abroad although they have the financial and technical means for that. This hinders us from creating the large-scale economy needed in the investment world, leading to less or delayed investments. Our aim is to break this vicious circle. We are already a global fintech with our headquarters located in London. We have all kinds of operating licenses in the UK, whereas our R&D office and most of our employees are in Turkey since Turkey already has the best employees in the global industry.
As Ozan, you are targeting a more unconventional audience. Your target group is the gamers. What is your motivation behind choosing such a target group?
We aim to address all the gamers in Turkey and the world. There are 43 million gamers in Turkey, and other countries do have similar rates. This audience has the same behavioral patterns all around the world. With Ozan SuperApp, we aim to offer everything that gamers may need both in the game world and in the online world, such as food, travel, e-commerce and movie tickets, from a single platform. Lately, we have started to provide many services such as money transfer and cash flow through the application and we will soon add more features and services to the app.
AN ALL-STAR TEAM
Do you plan any funding round in the upcoming period?
We may organize a funding round because our business has grown much faster than we anticipated. This rapid growth made us reschedule our business and international expansion activities to earlier dates. We may receive investments in order to manage our launch and growth processes in new countries.
What will be your next goals and how will your process continue?
We have always believed that the product we have developed will be the number one all over the world. We predicate this belief on the fact that our product was accepted in a very short time even in the intensely competitive environment of Turkey. We have gained acceptance and our next goal is to grow in the UK and EU and then to meet the North American gamers. We also formed one of the best teams in the world. Each and every member of our team is a star in their field. Almost all the fintechs in the world usually have one or two stars, who are generally the founders. Our team, on the other hand, has stars in every position, from junior to senior positions. I am very proud of our team and I completely trust them.
₺10 BILLION TRANSACTION VOLUME
Can you talk about the development process and current data of Ozan?
We are actually a fairly new company. Yet we have accomplished a great deal in a short time. We were established in April 2019 and received our license from the Turkish Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) in September 2019. We launched Ozan SuperApp in February 2021 and Ozan Business in March 2021. In 2021, we became members of Visa, UnionPay International, MasterCard, BKM and Troy, respectively. We exceeded ₺3.7 billion transaction volume in our first year of commercial activity, and we are likely to exceed the last year’s figure as of the end of April. Our year-end target for 2022 is to exceed ₺10 billion. We aim for Ozan SuperApp to reach 1 million active users by the end of 2022.