Akulaku Want to Increase Ownership in Neo Commerce Bank Up to 40%

Akulaku plans to increase its share ownership in Bank Neo Commerce (BBYB) to around 40% or more from its current ownership of 25,66%.

Quote from Deal Street Asia, Founder and CEO Akulaku William Li said, the plan happened because Akulaku is raising funds ahead of its initial public offering (IPO) and looking to consolidate its wealth management and insurance business prior to a separate spin-off on the Indonesia Stock Exchange.

Meanwhile, Neo Commerce Bank itself is expected to make a comeback rights issue in the third quarter of 2022 worth IDR 5 trillion to meet the minimum capital requirements determined by the OJK.

Previously, at the beginning of this year, the management Neo Commerce Bank explained that the company is included in the criteria that are required to meet a core capital of IDR 3 trillion at the latest this year. As of last year, Neo Commerce Bank's minimum core capital has met at least Rp2 trillion by taking two actions rights issue.

“We definitely want to increase our shareholding (in the bank) and we will participate in rights issue next. The price is currently volatile. We have to look at the price and if the regulations allow, we want to increase our interest by more than 40%,” Li said.

In two rights issues at Bank Neo Commerce, Akulaku has always participated until now it is the controlling shareholder which controls 2,41 billion shares or the equivalent of 25,66 as of May 24, 2022.

Since entering, the two entities have been integrated with each other in terms of their services, one of which is Bank Neo Commerce, which has also become an institutional lender in Akulaku. Through it, Bank Neo Commerce noted that it had channeled digital loans of Rp. 2,2 trillion at a rate of Rp outstanding IDR 1,2 trillion.

Subsidiaries below Akulaku GROUP

Akulaku itself is now expanding its business scope in the financial sector. In addition to Neo Commerce Bank, earlier this month Akulaku through PT Pintar Belanja Indonesia (PBI) officially became the new controller at PT Inovasi Kredit Indonesia (iTruzz). In the iTruzz announcement as quoted from Bisnis.com, PBI has taken over 60% of the shares.

Akulaku annexed iTruzz via two mechanisms. First, buying shares of the original owner, then injecting capital through a rights issue scheme.

iTruzz is a startup developer of e-KYC solutions for the financial industry, providing OCR ID recognition technology, detection liveness, face comparison and other capabilities, and return of identity fraud verification results online real-time. This capability will help companies identify various fraud risks such as simulators, fraud, multi-openingand rooting.

Akulaku The Group also built a new subsidiary engaged in the wealthtech named OneAsset (PT Smart Platform Digital). OneAsset is super app investment products, financial education, and community.

So far, OneAset has divided its features into two types, namely bill payments and financial products. For financial products, it presents investment in mutual funds, SBN and gold. Most likely, Asetku, a subsidiary of Akulaku Group, will enter OneAset to add to OneAset's mission as platform one pintu.

According to reports from Bisnis.com, OneAset announced the plan to acquire investment manager company PT Investnow Principal Optima (investnow). Investnow is an investment manager company that markets mutual fund products and has a registered license since December 2017.