Himbara settled the merger of 10,000 ATMs

JAKARTA. The customers of state owned banks will enjoy low tariffs in transactions at automatic teller machines (ATMs). Himbara or the Association of State Owned Banks (Himbara) claimed to have just settled the merger or 10,000 ATMs of state owned banks.

The Chairman of ATMs’ Merger Team Ogi Prastomiyono said that the 10,000 ATMs already can be used. “But it will be formally launched by Ministry of State Owned Enterprises,” Ogi told KONTAN at the end of last week.

According to Ogi, aside of ATMs, as many as 10,000 electronic data capture (EDC) machines have been interconnected. Director of Digital Banking and Technology of Bank Mandiri Rico Usthavia said, the schedule for the formal launching of the ATMs and EDC machines mergers is being discussed.

After merging ATM and EDC networks, Himbara is targeting to obtain the license as payment principal by the end of January 2017. The principal license has been applied by PT Jalin Pembayaran Nasional (JPN) since the last year. “During the early phase, JPN will focus on the operations of Himbara’s ATMs,” Rico said.

Executive Director of Department of Policy and Payment System Supervision at BI (the Central Bank) Eni V. Panggabean said, BI is still processing the license for PT JPN. “The process has entered the final stage. We are ready to issue the license,” Eni told KONTAN.

Operating Transactions

In the future, as the switching company owned by Himbara, JPN will operate all transactions of ATM and EDC networks of state owned banks, such as Bank Mandiri, Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI), and Bank Tabungan Negara (BTN).

To date, JPN is the subsidiary of PT Telkom. After the establishment of the holding of state owned banks, the holding will take control over all of JPN stakes.

As of the end of 2016, four state owned banks in total have 59,486 units of ATMs and 626,624 units of EDC machines.

At the early stage, Himbara will merge as many as 10,000 EDC machines. The integration will reduce the banks’ costs, as the costs will be divided equally to each bank.

The ATM and EDC consolidations are expected to save as much as RP 6.8 trillion costs in every year. To be clear, customers of state owned banks can enjoy the lower tariffs.

To date, cash withdrawal at each state owned bank is charged with Rp 7,500 per transaction. Meanwhile, inter-state owned banks will be charged with a tariff of Rp 6,500 per transaction.

In the future, the cash withdrawal and transfer transactions will be free of charge. However, to date Himbara has not yet confirmed the realization of the free tariffs.

At the first phase, the tariff of transfer in inter-state owned banks will be reduced to Rp 4,000 per a transaction, while the tariff for cash withdrawal will be decreased to Rp 500. In the future, Himbara’s ATMs networks will be competing with PT Artajasa and ATM Bersama.

(Muhammad Farid/Translator)