Published 8 September 2026 · 6 min
Accepting card payments in Turkey: what a store owner should know
3D Secure, instalments and why the bank reviews your website before issuing a virtual POS. Practical notes from wiring card acquiring into our own store.
A Turkish buyer who reaches your checkout expects two things that are rare in other markets: an SMS or banking app confirmation for the card, and the option to split the payment into monthly instalments — taksit. A store that offers neither loses sales it had almost won.
The bank reviews your website first
Before a bank or a payment platform opens a virtual POS — sanal POS — it checks the site: company name and address, the distance selling agreement, returns and refund terms, a KVKK privacy notice, delivery conditions. Missing pages are the most common reason an application stalls, so we prepare these pages before applying, not after a rejection.
3D Secure is not optional
Almost every Turkish card goes through a confirmation step. The gateway runs it, but your checkout has to bring the buyer back with a clear result — success or failure. A hosted payment page, where the card is entered on the bank's own page, also keeps card data off your server entirely, which sharply reduces your security obligations.
Instalments sell
Turkish cardholders are used to splitting larger amounts into two to twelve monthly payments. Whether you can offer taksit on a given card depends on your agreement with your bank and on the buyer's card bank. Even two or three instalment options on the payment page noticeably lift conversion on expensive services.
What we set up for a store
- A hosted payment page through the bank's gateway — for our own store this is QNBPay from QNB
- A WooCommerce integration where the order is settled only after a server-to-server check with the bank, not on the browser redirect alone
- Refunds from the shop admin panel without touching code
- Test mode first: the gateway goes live only after a real test payment and a refund are both visible in the bank's panel
One question to settle with the bank before promising prices: the settlement currency. Depending on the merchant agreement the bank may settle in lira even when the site shows prices in dollars. This is a contract question, not a technical one, and it is cheaper to ask early.