Yapı Kredi bolsters bank security with Edge deployment and Microsoft partnership

Internet banking is growing by leaps and bounds, making online security increasingly vital for financial institutions like Yapı Kredi, one of Türkiye's largest publicly traded banks. The country’s financial industry is highly regulated, so compliance and customer data protection were key factors for the bank’s leadership as they considered which browser to select as the company’s new standard in anticipation of Internet Explorer’s (IE) approaching retirement. 

In the fall of 2020, Yapı Kredi chose Microsoft Edge for its advanced security features, speed, compatibility, and Chromium engine. “One of the major benefits of Edge is that it’s constantly upgrading,” says Uğur Koçer, the Senior Systems Engineer driving the rollout from within the bank’s Windows Application Planning and Design department. “And it’s very secure.”

Close collaboration delivers improved security features

Before deploying Microsoft Edge, Koçer and Hakan Karayel, Manager of the Windows Application team, positioned Yapı Kredi for success by running a pilot for the new browser within their own department, which is responsible for supporting more than 2,000 Windows servers and all Microsoft applications for the bank’s 20,000-plus employees. Microsoft Edge is already more secure than Chrome for businesses on Windows 10 and 11, but the Windows Application group wanted to modify a few specific Edge functions to fit the bank’s needs and industry requirements. 

“The feedback we shared was related to important new feature requests, and the Microsoft product team was agile enough for us to package those features in the browser,” Koçer says.

Microsoft Edge now prevents Yapı Kredi users from mistakenly signing out, thereby helping to maintain the bank’s conditional access policies, which allow employees to use browsers for web-based activities that are appropriate to their roles but not those outside of their permissions. Extensions and developer tools, which were previously tied together, have been separated so that personnel can install certain extensions securely while limiting unapproved extensions that could cause potential security risks. Enterprise security and compliance requirements are a primary focus for Microsoft Edge, and thanks to Yapı Kredi’s feedback, those modifications have now been included in the browser for the benefit of all users.

The Yapı Kredi security team was also eager to implement Edge’s built-in data loss prevention (DLP) feature, which helps protect against leakage of sensitive financial and personal information. The feature can be turned on quickly using the unified DLP controls within the Microsoft 365 compliance center—Koçer can deploy it in just 10 minutes. 

Microsoft Edge: the browser with speed, compatibility, “green IT,” and more

With IE retirement nearing in June 2022, Yapı Kredi has utilized Edge’s IE mode to provide backward compatibility with a handful of critical legacy apps while the bank continues its modernization efforts for hundreds of other apps. Meanwhile, the Chromium engine in Microsoft Edge offers a fast, modern browsing experience for employees. 

Yapı Kredi users are enjoying the updated features, including Turkish spellcheck and Sleeping Tabs, which automatically snoozes inactive tabs to optimize Edge’s performance. Koçer’s browser now uses an estimated 75% less CPU, improving battery life and aligning with Yapı Kredi’s ongoing “green IT” initiative. 

Koçer and Karayel agree that the ease of managing only one browser has been crucial for their small, busy team. “There is no reason to choose other browsers because Microsoft Edge covers everything—speed and security, manageability, green IT, and deploying according to the bank’s requirements,” Karayel says. “Also, it’s easy to use.”

Yapı Kredi’s senior management has echoed employee sentiment in applauding the move to Edge, making the deployment a companywide success for the Windows Application team. Koçer sums it up best: “Microsoft Edge is a savior for us.”

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