Jaygan Fu Ponnudurai Now CEO of OVO, Replaces Jason Thompson

OVO appointed Jaygan Fu Ponnudurai as the new CEO to replace Jason Thompson as of September 2021. Jaygan was previously the COO of OVO since June 2018, having held various positions in Grab Malaysian and Grab Indonesia.

Regarding this succession, Jaygan Fu has confirmed his new position to the team DailySocial.id. Jaygan was previously the company's COO.

Ovo said Jaygan Fu replaced Jason Thompson, who had finished his term and had moved to Singapore. His experience with OVO since 2018 is believed to provide more value for OVO's growth and role in accelerating the transformation of digital financial payments and services, towards equitable financial literacy and inclusion throughout Indonesia.

Both Jaygan Fu and Thompson are former officials Grab before leading OVO. Thompson previously also served as Managing Director GrabPay before becoming number one in OVO. Before Thompson joined OVO, at the beginning of its establishment, OVO was led by Adrian Suherman who was part of the Lippo group.

After Thomson filled the position of CEO, Adrian moved to the position of President Director of OVO, until finally the position was filled by Karaniya Dharmasaputra until now. Now Adrian is the President Director of Matahari Putra Prima (MPPA).

Separately, at a press conference held yesterday (28/9), OVO has now entered its 4th year and has transformed from being just a platform. e-money, is now starting to enter digital financial services. "One of the innovations in the area of ​​investment with Bareksa, there is deep integration antara e-money with e-investments. This is what I think is the first in Indonesia," said Karaniya.

In fact, in the 2nd year of OVO, it has won the position as unicorn 5th in Indonesia. The youngest company alias in comparison peers-New.

In the midst of fierce competition for digital payment services, he continued, according to research revealed by Kadence International Indonesia, OVO is the number one digital payment that is most often used. It is said that OVO has 71% active users and a brand awareness level of up to 96%. It was also revealed that the profile of OVO users came from the age group of 25-45 years with a composition of 51% male and 49% female.

Some of the reasons consumers choose OVO, among others, can be used in many applications or online merchants, can transfer balances to bank accounts, have many promos and cashback, cost top-up lowest, and is used by many online shops and merchants.

The research also revealed that 8 out of 10 OVO users ordered food online and 7 out of 10 users used OVO for offline payment transactions at restaurants.

OVO is now present in more than 430 cities and regencies, with more than 1,2 million merchants from various industries, including MSMEs that have implemented QRIS.

Digital payment application competition

According to Bank Indonesia data, in 2020 the number of electronic money transactions has reached Rp161 trillion with 4,6 billion transaction volumes. The trend continues to increase from year to year, as of August 2021 alone, it has recorded a transaction value of IDR 161 trillion with 3,3 billion transactions.

OVO itself has a fairly strong position in the market, especially when it is currently used as the main payment service at Tokopedia and Grab. According to BOKU 2021 report, based on market share Of the total existing players, the following rankings were found: OVO (38,2%), ShopeePay (15,6%), LinkAja (13,9%), Gopay (13,2%), and DANA (12,2 %).

Nevertheless, OVO clearly cannot afford to relax, the recent business dynamics have the potential to 'threat its position'. Call it a business combination Gojek-Tokopedia, in particular they have co-founded GoTo Financial which will accommodate all fintech on both platforms. Gojek itself has Gopay and Gopaylater which compete directly with OVO. Lately the service too started to be integrated into Tokopedia.

The same goes for positions in Grab, giant intimacy ride hailing with EMTEK getting closer lately. Meanwhile, the technology conglomerate also operates DANA in its business line. So far there has been no sign that it will shift OVO's position in Grab; there is actually a plan merger between OVO and DANA.

Other players also have their own strategies. ShopeePay is still focused on accommodating its very massive customers, while starting to dive into the O2O realm. While LinkAja also continues to strengthen its existence as a payment in offline merchant -- by continuously improving integration to consumer platforms such as Gojek.