Indonesian Digital Banks Boost Credit Through Business Ecosystem

DIGITAL BANKING - JAKARTA. Amid the increasing emergence of new players, existing digital banks in Indonesia continue to strive to optimize their ecosystem to boost performance. Understandably, the ecosystem is one of the keys for digital banks to be able to compete in an increasingly tight industry.

Take PT Allo Bank Indonesia Tbk (BBHI) for example. As one of CT Corp's entities, Allo Bank optimizes the parent and other shareholder ecosystems such as the Salim group. "From the beginning, we have been running with the ecosystem owned by Allo so we can share revenue and cost," said Aviliani, Commissioner of Allo Bank. 

According to her, without an ecosystem, digital banks will find it difficult to distribute their loans. "Because with an ecosystem, we can know SLIK data and what the customer's buying patterns are, then it will be distributed through paylater," added Aviliani.

However, she was reluctant to disclose the contribution of the ecosystem to Allo Bank's loan distribution. What is certain is that Allo Bank will continue to focus on retail customers in the future. "It's not that we can't go to the corporate segment, but the cost is more expensive," she said.

Ecosystem contribution

In addition to Allo Bank, PT Bank Jago Tbk (ARTO) also relies on its ecosystem to boost performance. One of Allo Bank's ecosystems is PT GoTo Gojek Tokopedia Tbk (GOTO). Bank Jago's President Director Arief Harris Tandjung stated that the GOTO ecosystem contributes 8%-9% to loan distribution. 

Going forward, Harris said, the contribution of the GOTO ecosystem could be even greater. Moreover, the GOTO ecosystem has contributed about 35% of new customers to Bank Jago, which has a total of 9 million customers as of September 2023.

Jenius by BTPN also gets support from the parent bank's ecosystem, namely PT Bank BTPN Tbk (BTPN). Bank BTPN's Digital Banking Business Stream Head, Anita Ekasari, is optimistic that Jenius can continue to exist even amid the tight competition of digital banks. 

"We can compete because we have BTPN and SMBC, and are supported by Jenius users," said Anita, who also serves as the Head of Retail and Acquisition Digital Banking at Jenius.