From Erdek to Everywhere

This week, I’ve been working (read: reflecting, resetting, beach-walking) from Erdek, a small coastal town tucked away on the Sea of Marmara. It’s the kind of place that forces you to slow down. There’s a softness to it — beer at 4, the sea always within sight, and a feeling that maybe not everything has to move at fintech speed.

But even here, stories of global banking innovation sneak their way in.

While I’ve been unplugging and realigning, I came across this fascinating update: Ozan Özerk, one of Turkey’s lesser-known but most globally ambitious fintech founders, is building cross-border banking infrastructure from London… with roots that still run deep through Istanbul.

🌍 Who is Ozan Özerk?

Ozan isn’t a mainstream fintech celebrity — yet. But he should be. He’s a Norwegian-Turkish serial entrepreneur, doctor-turned-founder, and the force behind a cluster of fintech ventures that have quietly stitched themselves across Europe’s financial web.

His portfolio includes:

• European Merchant Bank (EMBank) in Lithuania

• OpenPayd, a London-based BaaS (Banking-as-a-Service) provider

• Monetley, a digital payment service

• … and more, forming a tightly interlinked financial backbone

His work is behind-the-scenes — not flashy apps, but infrastructure. The plumbing. The wires. The middleware that allows money to move across borders, currencies, platforms. And in 2025, that kind of infrastructure is the goldmine.

🌐 Why Does This Matter Now?

We’ve all seen how crowded the consumer fintech game has become. Cards, neobanks, budgeting tools — differentiation is hard.

But the back-end? That’s where the power is shifting.

And Özerk’s move to tie London’s financial muscle to Istanbul’s entrepreneurial grit is worth watching. Turkey is often overlooked in global fintech maps — but it sits at a geographic and economic crossroads. The potential to become a bridge for financial services between Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa is massive.

🚤 The Retreat Mindset: Zooming Out

Sitting here in Erdek — where the vibe is as far from corporate rooms as it gets — it’s refreshing to zoom out. What Özerk is building reminds me of a truth we often skip in product meetings:

Good fintech infrastructure makes everything else easier to build. And while flashy front-ends may win press, it’s the cross-border compliance rails, instant payment networks, and bank integrations that make scale possible.

As embedded finance matures, the next frontier isn’t just adding a wallet to your app — it’s designing for borderless capital flows. And founders like Özerk? They’re quietly laying that groundwork.

🏖️ Final Takeaways from the Beach

Some thoughts from Erdek to carry into your week:

• Don’t sleep on infrastructure founders.

• Financial geography matters — Istanbul may be more strategically important than Silicon Valley thinks.

• Slow places give you the best headspace to understand fast-moving sectors.

If you’re building or investing in fintech, keep an eye on the edges — the people building things you can’t see yet often have the deepest impact.

✉️ Enjoy this beach-brained fintech riff?

Share it with a builder or founder who needs to look beyond the obvious.