Launch of CashCoop and Government Efforts to Promote Digital Strategy for Cooperatives and Micro Enterprises

Fintech seems increasingly believed to be a new beginning of the transformation of the financial business, from micro and macro scale. The government also believes in the same thing, in this case the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs (Kemenkop). Strategy implementation fintech will soon be encouraged by businesses under the Kemenkop, both for businesses or cooperative business lines. One of the initial efforts that will be made is through the CashCoop application, an application developed for cooperative connectivity networks.

The Ministry of Cooperatives is collaborating with PT Finnet Indonesia (a subsidiary of PT Telkom) to encourage cooperatives to transform into fintech as part of a government program called the Financial Inclusive National Strategy (SNKI). According to the Deputy for Financing of the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs, Braman Setyo, as reported on the page Kompas, with this approach the cooperative is considered to be getting bargaining position equivalent to banking. Because with the application of information technology, the public will find it easier to get access to the channel.

CashCoop have function sebagai payment system and funding, thus enabling cooperatives to carry out non-cash transactions, such as making bill payments or transfers. This application will be given to the cooperative for free, so the cooperative no longer has to bear the joining fee or other fees. One of the advantages of using the application is to make cooperative business transactions not as expensive as transactions between banks.

According to data from the Ministry of Cooperatives, as of 2015 the number of cooperatives in Indonesia reached 212.135 units, with a total of 150.233 active cooperatives. Meanwhile, the number of cooperative members is 37 million people with a transaction value of Rp 266,1 trillion.

Encouraging the digitalization of the microfinance sector in mutual cooperation

In addition to maximizing potential an increasingly attractive fintech In the national business landscape, initiatives to improve the quality of small businesses with digital approaches have previously been initiated, one of which is by maximizing E-commerce. It is realized that the development of technology projects is not easy, especially for small businesses, so one of the proposed strategies is mutual cooperation, both with the SOE sector, the private sector and the community in general.

Previously, the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs has brewing a crowdfunding scheme with the University of Indonesia. It is hoped that with this model (through crowdfunding or crowdfunding owned by government business networks) can quickly accelerate digital implementation in micro-enterprises. At that time, Barman said, the purpose of establishing the platform was to minimize the costs (interest) that would arise if a platform through crowdfunding privately owned.