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Credit Card
When I think back to the Akbil I used when I first arrived in Istanbul, I think it's fair to say that Istanbulkart has undergone a very significant transformation. Users can now track activity, top up and view balances right from their phones.
Payment Systems
When Does a Transit Card Become a Payment System? Millions of people in Istanbul use Istanbulkart every day. Passing through metro turnstiles, rushing to a bus or boarding a ferry at the last moment, our hand reaches almost by reflex for our card or our phone...
Closed-Loop Payments
Is Starbucks really selling coffee, or building an ecosystem? Prepaid balances, a loyalty program and customer data turn a coffee chain's payments into a closed-loop economy, a very different model from Istanbulkart.
Closed-Loop Payments
In the final post of the closed-loop payments series, the common question behind cards, QR payments, and prepaid balances comes into focus: who manages the customer relationship, and whose ecosystem does the customer stay in?
Merchant & POS
In the first post I explained what closed-loop payment systems are and how they differ from open-loop ones. Many of the replies I received boiled down to one question: how do these systems actually work behind the scenes once a QR code is scanned?
Debit Card
A stored value card is a widely used card type today. Instead of being held in a financial system, the monetary balance is stored directly on the card, which has a special magnetic stripe recording important financial data such as the balance.