Indonesian banking giants to integrate their cashless payment services

By Anisa Menur A. Maulani for e27

Four Indonesian major commercial banks –from state-owned Bank Mandiri, Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI), Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), to privately owned Bank Central Asia (BCA)– today announced a plan to integrate their cashless payment services under one network.

The partnership is an implementation of a recent MoU on interconnectivity and interoperability, in order to support the country’s National Payment Gateway (NPG) programme, as initiated by its central bank Bank Indonesia.

Kartika Wirjoatmodjo, President Director and CFO of Bank Mandiri, told CNN Indonesia that the four banks have been requested to pioneer the building of an e-money platform, which each bank has already owned. In the long run, he expected that the platforms that each bank has created can be run under “a single system.”

Wirjoatmodjo also explained that under the single system, each bank will be able to utilise the platform that has been built by the other bank. For example, users of BCA’s Flazz card will be able to pay toll fee on the Automatic Toll Gate (GTO), which platform is currently operated by Bank Mandiri.

“If other banks [other than these four banks] wish to issue their own cards [for cashless payment system], then please go ahead. They just have to issue it, and then they can use the platform made by these four major banks. But there will be a transaction fee as we were the one building the capital expenditure,” he said.

The integration is expected to be completed within the next two months.

The National Payment Gateway scheme is one of the points included in the Indonesian government’s much anticipated e-commerce roadmap, which aims to support e-commerce firms operating in the market.

First appeared at e27