Turkey’s PayCore Snags New Majority Investor Amid Digital Payments Boom

Mediterra Capital is expanding its portfolio with a big new investment that will give the top Turkish private equity firm a stake in the country’s fast-growing digital payments sector.

On Wednesday (Oct. 14), Mediterra announced it has inked a share purchase agreement giving it a majority stake in PayCore, one of Turkey’s leading providers of payments software and platforms.

The closing of the deal is subject to regulatory approval, the companies noted, with no timeline given.

PayCore has been pushing to expand globally from its home base in Turkey, having acquired Mastercard Payment Transaction Services Turkey Bilişim Hizmetleri A.Ş., which has a footprint that extends to more than 12 countries.

Launched in 2001, PayCore notes that more than a million POS terminals in Turkey operate with software developed and provided by the company.

In addition, PayCore’s software helps facilitate 60 percent of all credit card transactions in Turkey, the company said.

The move comes alongside growing interest in digital payments among Turkey’s relatively young population, with roughly half the country under 30 years old, writes H. Bader Arslan, secretary-general of the Turkish Exporters Assembly.

As many as 56 percent of Turkish consumers have made a mobile payment at one point or another, compared to just a quarter in France and 23 percent in Germany, an ING study found.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also been pushing for the country’s central bank to roll out its own digital currency.

“Increasing domestic and foreign investment into Turkey’s financial technology sector, along with a higher-than-average acceptance of payment cards and [a] tech-savvy population, makes for an economy that is ready to transition to becoming cashless,” Arslan noted in a piece in Finance Digest.

Still, challenges remain, with Turkish consumers not quite ready to completely give up on cash, as Dr. Soner Canko, CEO of Turkish bank consortium Bankalararasi Kart Merkezi, told PYMNTS.