Investree, an Indonesian B2B marketplace lending platform for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), announced that it has secured US$ 10.5 million in debt financing. The financing came from responsAbility Investments, a Swiss asset manager focused exclusively on sustainable investment and Accial Capital, a US-based investor in fintech lending portfolios in emerging markets. The proceeds will directly contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a large economy characterised by a limited access to finance for MSMEs, that hinders job creation, fuels inequality, and stifles economic development. Adrian Gunadi, Co-Founder and CEO of Investree said, “This partnership with…
Author: Fintech News Indonesia
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Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) may be a relatively new product in the financial services scene, but for those companies in the lending game who offer this option, they’re onto a winner. To stay competitive, it is imperative that those in the digital payments and banking sector start offering this “instant credit” method immediately – and seamlessly. But first, some context. Exploring BNPL’s user base Also known as point-of-sale (POS) lending or financing, BNPL has exploded in part due to COVID-19, but largely thanks to thin-file users. These customers can be broken down into three distinct, at times overlapping, populations.…
As one of Indonesia’s oldest and largest bank, Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) is always a step ahead in adapting and applying the latest technologies to create various digital platforms and applications to support its customers’ digital needs. This includes BRImo, Ceria, BRISPOT, and BRIMOLA where the bank intends to apply innovation to serve its customers easily, comfortably, and securely. Weighing against all other applications in BRI’s ecosystem, the BRImo app spearheads the bank’s technology strategy with superior features such as digital savings account, online bill payments, e-wallet and e-money top ups, cardless withdrawals at the ATM, personal financial management (PFM),…
Indonesia’s GoTo Group announced that a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), a sovereign wealth fund owned by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, will lead its pre-IPO fundraising with a US$400 million investment. The investment will be the first principal investment by ADIA’s Private Equities Department into a technology business in Southeast Asia and its largest investment into Indonesia to date. The group is looking to raise US$1 billion to US$ 2 billion ahead of a public listing in Indonesia by this year. Bloomberg reported that the listing could potentially drive up GoTo’s valuation to approximately US$30 billion.…
Indonesia has the world’s 16th largest economy and is the world’s fourth most populous country with 274 million people, out of these 84% below the age of 54. With Internet penetration standing at 67% and financial inclusion remaining a key challenge, Indonesia offers a fertile ground for fintech innovation. Indonesia’s fast-growing fintech ecosystem has been largely driven by a proactive government that has introduced rules in areas including peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, digital payments, and most recently open banking, in hopes to encourage innovation and improve financial inclusion. This favorable landscape has attracted the attention of both local and international investors, many…
Indonesia, the largest economy in Southeast Asia and the eighth largest in the world in terms of purchasing power parity, has become one of the fastest growing fintech markets in the region. By 2025, digital financial services revenues in Indonesia is projected to rise to US$8.6 billion, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 34%, according to a new market report by Swiss export and promotion agency, Switzerland Global Enterprise. Payments and alternative lending under the spotlight Indonesia hosts around 20% of all fintech firms in the ASEAN region with lending and payments currently dominating the domestic fintech…
Buy now, pay later (BNPL), also referred to as paylater, has become one of the most popular payment options in Indonesia. After digital money (82.2%), it’s the second most used fintech product in the country, recording a penetration rate of 72.5%, according to a 2020 DSInnovate survey. The findings were shared in a newly released report titled Indonesia Paylater Ecosystem Report 2021. Produced by local tech information platform DailySocial.id, the report dives into the BNPL industry in Indonesia, sharing key metrics and revealing the industry players engaged in the space. According to the report, BNPL will continue growing in the…
Indonesia’s fintech industry is entering a new era of growth and maturity, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, booming venture funding activity, and a proactive regulatory environment that has committed to fostering innovation to help improve financial inclusion, top executives from online lending platform Modalku, open finance startup Finantier, e-wallet OVO, and Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), said during a recent Fintech Fireside Asia virtual panel discussion. “The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital services and services … regulators are providing guidelines for everyone in the ecosystem … and [fellow] fintechs are becoming unicorns,” said Diego Rojas, Co-Founder, and CEO of…
Fintech activity is accelerating in Indonesia, a trend marked by significant startup venture capital rounds, accelerated growth of local fintech startups, and increased participation of foreign companies in the domestic market. These past months have been seen a multitude of funding rounds going towards Indonesian fintech startups. AwanTunai, a point-of-sale financing solution aimed at digitizing Indonesia’s large cash economy, raised US$11.2 million in August. AwanTunai offers digital services including affordable inventory purchase financing, integrated online ordering, and inventory management, serving wholesalers and micro-merchants. Digital Payments Holdings, the company that operates OY! Indonesia, raised US$44.47 million in its Series A funding…
Venture capital firm Ribbit Capital has snapped up a minority stake in Bank Jago, a Gojek-backed digital bank. Ribbit Capital had previously invested in Tinkoff, Revolut, BharatPe, Robinhood, Affirm, Nubank, Coinbase and Credit Karma. Prior to this, ride hailing super app Gojek had acquired a 22% stake in Bank Jago who had launched its fully digital banking platform in April 2021. Gojek’s app now includes a cashless payment method powered by Jago for seamless in-app payments. In the last 12 months, Bank Jago has partnered with many ecosystems, including various lending and wealth management platforms. Bank Jago’s President Director, Kharim Siregar…
Indonesian B2B e-commerce marketplace Ula has raised US$87 million in a Series B funding round co-led by Prosus Ventures, Tencent and B-Capital. The trio are joined by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Expeditions, and Southeast Asian funds Northstar group, AC Ventures and Citius. Existing investors Lightspeed India, Sequoia Capital India, Quona Capital and Alter Global also participated in the round. The latest fundraise will be used to grow Ula’s presence across Indonesia and explore international expansion across Southeast Asia. Ula is also looking to add new categories, expand its Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) offering, as well as build new technology and a…
FinAccel, the parent company of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) platform Kredivo, announced that three of its existing investors has joined its PIPE deal which is in excess of US$125 million. The investors in the PIPE deal are MDI Ventures, corporate venture capital arm of Telkom Indonesia, as well as Cathay Innovation, and Endeavor Catalyst. The investment comes ahead of FinAccel’s plans to go public through a US$2.5 billion SPAC deal. In addition to the recent PIPE funding, the company is also announcing three new members to the Board of Commissioners. Arsjad Rasjid, Darmin Nasution and Karen Brooks will be…
Indonesian payments aggregator OY! Indonesia announced that it has raised US$30 million (Rp. 443.2 billion) in a Series A funding round led by SoftBank Ventures Asia (SBVA). The financing round was also joined by other prominent investors such as MDI, Pavilion Capital, AC Venture, CCV, Wavemaker, PT SAT, Saison Capital Pte. Ltd., Orion Advisors (DST Founders). OY! Indonesia said that it will use the funds to take the company to the next growth phase and expand its business in Indonesia. Since commencing operations in 2018, OY! Indonesia enables businesses of all scales to send and receive money both cash and…
Indonesian payments firm Xendit is now a unicorn with the closing of its US$150 million Series C funding round. The round was led by Tiger Global Management with participation from existing investor Accel, Amasia, and Justin Kan’s Goat Capital. With the latest investment, Xendit said that it plans to continue innovating their product suite, with sights on expansion into select countries across Southeast Asia following its breakthrough in the Philippines. Xendit had announced in March this year that it had closed a US$64.6 million Series B led by Accel and has raised a total of US$238 million since 2015. The…
Kredivo, an Indonesian Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) platform, announced its expansion into Vietnam through a joint venture with Phoenix Holding, a family investment company based in the country. This move comes on the heels of the announcement by FinAccel, Kredivo’s parent company, to go public via a US$2.5 billion SPAC merger earlier this month. The firm had raised US$90 million in 2019 during a Series C funding round to double down on its South East Asian expansion plans. In Vietnam, Kredivo will partner with VietCredit Joint Stock Company, a finance company, to operate its BNPL business in Vietnam. The…
Banking and financial services platform Mambu released its research series named the Disruption Diaries which seeks to understand what people think of the key trends driving the development of financial services. In Mambu’s third edition, the firm conducted a global survey of 2,000 members of the younger Muslim community mainly the Gen Z and millennials to understand what Islamic finance means to them, as well as their expectations of this sector. As one of the fastest-growing financial industries, Islamic finance continues to grow in size and influence spreading far beyond the Middle East into Muslim-majority countries in Asia and Africa,…
Peer-to-peer lending app Ringan, deploys a suite of digital lending solutions built by OneConnect Financial Technology, an associate of Ping An Group, to provide Indonesians a seamless and secure loan application experience. The digital solutions automate and simplify Ringan’s loan process from loan origination, loan management and application, to debt collection, risk assessment, analytics, and reporting. Ringan said in a statement that the “simple application process will greatly benefit Indonesians as electronic know-your-customer (eKYC) technology can verify identity remotely and auto-populate forms to enable hassle-free loan applications”. Indonesians can apply for unsecured loans of up to IDR 20,000,000 with a…
Lifepal, an Indonesian digital direct-to-consumer (D2C) insurance marketplace, announced it has raised an oversubscribed US$9 million Series A funding round, bringing the total capital raised to US$12 million. The funding round was led by ProBatus Capital with participation from Cathay Innovation, Insignia Ventures Partners, ATM Capital and Hustle Fund. Lifepal said that it will use the new financing to improve its product and customer experience. The firm was founded in 2019 by former Lazada executives Giacomo Ficari and Nicolo Robba, as a one-stop platform offering over 300 policies across health, life, automotive, property, and travel. Lifepal reportedly has more than…
Bank Indonesia (BI) and the Bank of Thailand (BOT) launched a cross-border QR payment linkage between Indonesia and Thailand today. Under this linkage, consumers and merchants in both countries will be able to make and accept instant cross-border QR payments for goods and services. This connection is the first that links the retail payment system operators in both countries. It also marks a key milestone in the ASEAN Payment Connectivity initiative, aiming to promote financial integration in the region. This development follows similar arrangments between Singapore and Thailand, and Malaysia and Thailand which announced the enablement of instant cross-border QR…
A recent study of 2,000 global consumers by Mambu, a banking and financial services platform, revealed that both banked and unbanked individuals feel underserved, with 56% of banked customers claiming that there are other services they should be able to access. “With more than 290 million unbanked adults across Southeast Asia, the data that’s usually reported points us to emerging markets and geographical barriers to access; however, even consumers who are banked have reported gaps in financial accessibility,” said Myles Bertrand, Managing Director Asia Pacific, at Mambu. “Personalisation is going to be key for banks if they want to avoid…