Haryati Lawidjaja: LinkAja Focuses on Fulfilling Essential Needs

Based on the Shareholders' Decree dated April 29, 2020, Haryati Lawidjaja officially appointed as the President Director (CEO) of LinkAja. Joined in June 2019, he previously served as COO and Plt. CEO replaces Danu Wicaksono who is now anchored in Good Doctor Indonesia.

This task is certainly not easy in the midst of intense platform competition digital e-money in Indonesia. In his interview with DailySocial, Haryati conveyed her vision and strategy for the company.

"I and the best talent LinkAja focus on encouraging financial and economic inclusion through the development of a digital financial ecosystem that serves the needs of the community & SMEs in Indonesia [...] We are optimistic that in 2024 LinkAja as one of the catalysts for the National Non-Cash Movement can participate in helping the government achieves national financial inclusion of 90 percent," he said.

Strengthen collaboration

His strategy to strengthen his position is through strategic cooperation with various parties, both with banking and non-banking institutions, while continuing to strive for product innovation. The cooperation involved involves various aspects of the national economy, including government.

"We collaborate with local governments through various programs, including: digitizing 451 traditional markets throughout Indonesia, retribution services in 34 cities, development of more than 200 thousand merchant (UKM), to ease of payment in 94 local transportations," added Haryati.

He added that since its launch its services have focused on providing digital financial services for the middle class/aspirants and SMEs. This is what is claimed to distinguish LinkAja from similar platforms.

"LinkAja focuses on meeting the essential needs of the community, starting from E-commerce, communications, travel, health, insurance, investment, donations, entertainment, fuel purchases, bill payments, to various government programs such as distribution of social assistance and ultra-micro credit; to traditional markets," explained Haryati.

Business development

Public education regarding digital financial platforms is still the homework of every player fintech in Indonesia. LinkAja feels the same way. The existence of cross-sectoral cooperation is expected to have a significant impact to assist companies in educating users.

The success of this user education, according to Haryati, has a direct impact on increasing business traction, "This is proven by the 5-fold increase in the number of transactions since operating in February 2019 until the end of 2019. 83% of LinkAja users are spread outside Jakarta, with 40% of users from outside Java such as cities in Sumatra and Sulawesi."

"Currently, we have more than 45 million users spread throughout Indonesia, with the dominant age group being 25-35 years old (as of Q1 2020)," said Haryati.

Previously, in December 2019, LinkAja appointed Ikhsan Ramdan as CFO. One of the focuses is to do fundraising Seri B in 2020. When we asked about the progress of the plan, Haryati declined to comment.

Then regarding his cooperation plan with Facebook to bring Facebook Pay in Indonesia, he also could not provide details. As previously noted, Facebook Pay wants to maneuver in Indonesia by presenting the feature of sending funds through the Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp platforms. Facebook is said to be negotiating with regulators, while GoPay, LinkAja, and Ovo are said to be cooperating as strategic partners.

Expansion plan

For this year, LinkAja is still focusing on the domestic market while still opening up opportunities for strategic cooperation with regional and global players to expand their products.

"One of the obstacles to electronic money platforms, including LinkAja, is that access to financial services is still limited, especially for people living in regions and remote areas. For this reason, we are currently focusing on continuing to provide continuous education and providing easy access to electronic payments, especially for the ultra micro and segment mass market in the corner."

On a regional scale, he continued, LinkAja is the only electronic money in Indonesia that serve remittances from Indonesian Migrant Workers (PMI) in Singapore who want to send money to families in the country.

Not long ago, features Sharia also inaugurated by the company and is expected to reach 1 million users. The thing that distinguishes this sharia feature from conventional services is the depository institution (floating funds) using Islamic banking services.

Future trends

After this pandemic, Haryati is quite confident that digital services will have a positive impact on increasing service usage. Condition new normal resulting in changes in people's behavior which in turn accelerates digitization in various industrial sectors. Thus, this will expand and accelerate the need for digital financial education and access to digital finance in the community.

"For example, digitalization of traditional markets, which is a challenge for LinkAja to continue to innovate products, as well as education as quickly as possible so that they can adapt and provide meaningful solutions to conditions. new normal this."

Haryati also said that people would be more accustomed to digital transactions. With the level of inclusion and also increasing public financial literacy, the need for various transactions will increase. "We are optimistic that LinkAja, which is majority owned by SOEs, is operated by the best national workforce, and infrastructure located in Indonesia will soon become national champion in the field of digital financial services.”

“By producing the best talents in the digital industry, we will continue to improve the quality of our services, innovate to build and develop services and ecosystems that are relevant to the people of Indonesia. Increasing the relevance of LinkAja to the Indonesian people, especially the middle class/aspirant, bulk and ultra micro," he concluded.