Chris Yeo's Ambition to Bring DOKU and “Payment Gateway” Business to Further Growth

At the end of last July, platform payment gateway DOKU announced the appointment of Chris Yeo as the company's new CEO. His expansive experience in the financial industry is expected to be good ammunition in bringing DOKU to its next growth.

Yeo previously served as Managing Director and Head of GrabPay and GrabRewards at Grab FinancialGroup, and was a part of PayPal. He replaces the previous CEO, Thong Sennelius, who remains a member of DOKU's Board of Directors.

In a joint interview DailySocial.id, Yeo expressed his optimism for DOKU's business development as a pioneer payment gateway local since 2007 with a myriad of ups and downs.

When he worked for PayPal for 10 years in the Asia Pacific region, he monitored a lot of people champion from local areas in Asia and its development from time to time. DOKU is on the radar.

“DOKU is filled with people who have deep experience, which is very important in building a sustainable business in the payments industry. Moreover, citing the 2021 e-Conomy report, Indonesia is at the forefront with growth potential three times higher than Vietnam. "DOKU is in the right position to take a position amidst the rapid growth of the digital economy," he said.

Management experience in regional and international scope, and supported by positive macroeconomic conditions, has strengthened DOKU's steps to start regional expansion. Malaysia is the first country to be tested, through the acquisition of SenangPay, a similar player from the neighboring country.

Yeo said that DOKU's expansion steps were intended to enter areas that were not yet the company's strengths. Currently DOKU is claimed to be the segment leader payment gateway with more than 150 thousand merchants, the majority of large corporations spanning 18 industries, incl marketplace, fintech, and public services.

DOKU products, apart from payment gateway, has transformed into the most complete payment platform, from online, offline, as well as value-added services (value-added services).

He gave an example of one of the innovations developed to meet complex payment needs. Unlike most payment players who offer settlement times (settlement) “T+1” in the aggregator model, DOKU claims to be the only payment platform in Indonesia that offers the “T+0 for same day settlement time” feature which is tailored to the needs of mutual fund merchants. This is in accordance with the provisions set by the OJK for purchasing mutual funds online.

There are also recurring payment innovations in the field insurtech. To keep premium payments paid by customers, recurring payments are required (recurring). In this way, the company continues to keep its business and customers protected with insurance.

Why Malaysia?

Yeo is confident in DOKU's claim to be an industry leader payment gateway in Indonesia. It is stated that the company has provided 40 payment methods covering online and offline transactions. There is still room for growth, especially in the SME area which has not been exploited optimally and for consumers Existing Of course, there are many further innovations that can be developed.

Share DOKU, a way of thinking about innovating in business payment gateway is moving money efficiently. From point A to point B, from one person to the second person, and so on. Current solutions may be much better than before, but for most businesses there is still a lot of friction.

“That's how the payments business works and this is where payments innovation comes from. So if you think about it today you know some, some methods, some use cases seem fine, but a lot of those payment methods for other people are still a lot of friction. And with this friction, there are opportunities and we think there are still many opportunities to solve problems in Indonesia.”

Yeo continued, “As long as we continue to make payments easier for businesses to become more efficient, innovation will continue. With our position in market leader, so it is very possible for us to start thinking about expanding growth in other areas that we have not yet mastered. For us, entering the MSME segment is the most important for further growth. The acquisition of SenangPay is one example.”

SenangPay, he continued, is one of the leading players payment gateway who is strong with merchant MSMEs. It is claimed that the number reached more than 15 thousand merchant. This is an added value that will be useful in developing a more diverse range of products in which they (DOKU and SenangPay) operate. Moreover, Malaysia and Indonesia have similar social and cultural backgrounds.

SenangPay is managed by SimplePay Gateway Sdn Bhd which was founded in 2015. The company has been registered with Bank Negara Malaysia as a Merchant Acquiring Service provider. The company also collaborates with Mastercard International as a Payment Facilitator (FP) for the Asia Pacific region.

The solutions the company provides to help Malaysian businesspeople include credit/debit card payment methods, internet banking (FPX), and working with all major players e-wallet in Malaysia. It is claimed that SenangPay is one of five service providers payment gateway the best in Malaysia which has served more than 15 thousand merchants, with a team of more than 45 people.

"We will transfer knowledge, how to serve small traders in Indonesia to them, and vice versa, so that SenangPay can expand [business] to a larger business segment in Malaysia."

SenangPay plans to strengthen and expand services beyond online payment gateways, namely adopting new services, such as e-wallet, remittances, and offline transactions such as Tap On Glass, M2M (mobile to mobile). With this new offering, SenangPay enables merchants to transition from a physical store model to a digital version, in line with the Government's “Digital Malaysia” initiative.

This is an opportunity for DOKU to bring its technology to Malaysia, due to the imbalance in fintech innovation there compared to Indonesia, which is much more dynamic.

“So I think every [fintech] player needs to know what focus they are good at. And for DOKU, we always have a few things in mind. The first thing is providing a comprehensive product for online and offline payments.”

He also believes that collaboration with other players will help increase financial product inclusion in Indonesia. In the world of finance, the concept does not apply winner takes all.

"It's actually the opposite because the payments market is very large in this very large [Indonesian] market."

In fact, he continued, even in developed countries the payment business is controlled by several players because there are many segments that can be focused on. “So, partnerships between payment actors are very important.”

Yeo has so far been unwilling to reveal the company's next expansion plans after Malaysia.

Deepen SMEs

Along with the transfer of knowledge with SenangPay, DOKU will deepen its focus in the MSME sector. Yeo explained, in targeting this segment, DOKU really started from the fundamental needs of MSMEs as the initial focus.

“If you think about self-serve sign up or self-onboarding, which is very important for MSMEs, to be honest, this is an area that we have never focused on before. [So far] We focus on large-scale companies, where they won't come to the site websites us to register ourselves because they have an IT team that registers for them, right.”

He continued, “So what MSMEs need is a process which is fast and simple. [..] There is an opportunity to improve the flow that currently exists. But talking about MSMEs, we actually have several products today to create payment links that they can send via any channel easily.”

MSMEs also usually need a simple e-catalog to make it easier to promote their goods and of course receive payments. "We are thinking about how DOKU can further improve several existing products on the market by providing added value for merchants."

“And ultimately, we want to provide products that truly add value to MSMEs. From what we hear, they are basically looking for three things, namely convenience, simplicity, and cost-effectiveness. And that, that is still our philosophy," he concluded.