Backed by Tencent’s Co-Founder, Koku Eyes Indonesian Expansion
by Fintech News Singapore August 13, 2019Singapore based fintech KOKU has announced its plans to expand into Indonesia. Its regional expansion follows their successful US$2 million pre-series A funding round earlier this year, which was led by Decent Capital, an investment firm started by Tencent Co-Founder Jason Zeng.
KOKU works with Non-Bank Financial Intermediaries (NBFIs), building foreign exchange (FX) technology solutions. It is already exploring initial projects with NBFI partners in Indonesia.
The startup views Indonesia as an increasingly promising market with a high migrant population and increasing inbound and outbound remittance.
Through technology, there is immense potential for Indonesia to grow its remittance industry as well as contribute to the growth of the region’s e-payments and money transfer capabilities.
According to the World Bank, Indonesia’s economy has experienced tremendous improvements and growth, partly due to the contributions of its remittance industry.
Examples of this growth include double-digit growth of 24.7 percent in 2018, and a recorded transaction value of US$8.9 billion of foreign exchange by migrant workers in 2017. Indonesia is also considered as one of the top ten largest remittance recipients in Asia in 2018, per the Asian Development Bank’s estimates.
Calvin Goh
“Indonesia is uniquely fragmented, and for us this presents great opportunity to contribute to the growth of the country’s financial capability as well as the region’s. We offer technology that doesn’t silo growth, but enables our partners to grow to their strengths, whilst at the same time leaving room to collaborate and tap on the strength of others. KOKU envisions greater growth opportunities for the industry by leveraging technology to deliver financial inclusion and change the way of life for Indonesians,”
said Calvin Goh, Founder and CEO of KOKU.
As part of KOKU’s strategic plans to expand into Indonesia, KOKU will move to collaborate with partners who possess expertise of the local market. These partners include e-wallet players, micro-lending and payment companies, remittance and money exchange businesses.
Partnerships with these NBFIs will be centered around the integration of KOKU’s technology into existing operations – ensuring that partners have the ability to go-to-market quickly and without disruption to their business.
In addition, KOKU is potentially exploring opportunities to partner with local supermarkets and convenience stores, which will act as points of access to financial services, which will help the unbanked community move closers to financial inclusion.
Featured image credit: Koku
