New Fund Pocket, Digiasia Bios Strives to Strengthen Company's Position

Indonesian fintech company, Digiasia Bios (Digiasia), announced the acquisition of an undisclosed amount of Series B funding led by Mastercard. This new funding is in the form of capital and strategic support to strengthen the company's position.

"With the inclusion of Mastercard, we have the support of one of the expert in the field digital commerce. We look forward to further collaborations to expand our reach in Indonesia and develop robust financial services for all walks of life," said Alexander Rusli, Co-Founder and CEO.

Not only capital and strategic access provided by Mastercard, it is also mentioned that Digiasia gains access to strengthen its services by providingleverage business and banking networks, and Mastercard's cybersecurity technology.

Digiasia was founded by former Indosat Ooredoo officials, namely Alexander Rusli (former CEO) and Prashant Gokarn (former Chief Digital & Service Officer) in 2018.

The company is holding company from service e-wallet KasPro, P2P platform lending KreditPro, and remittance services with channel digital and network offline RemitPro. All three are under the auspices of PT Solusi Pasti Indonesia, PT Tri Digi Fin, and PT Reyhan Putra Mandiri.

Previously, its subsidiary, PT Solusi Pasti Indonesia, had taken over Indosat Ooredoo's Dompetku digital wallet service. This service was later merged into PayPro in 2017. It is not clear how the fate of the PayPro business will continue to this day.

From the side partnerships, Digiasia has partnered with a number of transportation companies to provide transaction convenience, such as the collaboration between KasPro and Damri for certain routes in Bandung. On the other hand, the sale of B2B products from Metrodata is facilitated by KreditPro.

Map of fintech market competition and opportunities

Digiasia actually currently has a sufficient portfolio to strengthen the product ecosystem in the future. The company uses a B2B2C approach by developing services in the  , P2P lending, and remittances.

However, not much can be read from the movement of Digiasia's strategy with this strategic synergy.

With the support of Mastercard, Digiasia has the opportunity to increase the market share of KasPro, KreditPro, and RemitPro in Indonesia and abroad. Plus the support from Mastercard's 25.000 network of financial institutions in the world will make it easier for Digiasia to expand merchant and increase the number of users.

Head of Corporate Communications Digiasia Bios Andy Muhammad Salidin confirmed this possibility. "It's true for these three products and there are several project Another [new] that we can't mention yet," he explained in a short message to DailySocial.

According to data from Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company 2019, as many as 92 million people in Indonesia have not been exposed to financial services (unbankable). Therefore, the presence of fintech services is considered to be one of the solutions to accelerate financial services.

In Indonesia, awareness The development of fintech products and their ecosystem in Indonesia has begun. Based on Fintech Report 2019, awareness The highest came from Digital Wallet services (82,7%), followed by Investment (62,4%), PayLater (56,7%), Online Multifinance (40%), Insurtech (39,1%), P2P Business Lending (21,5 .17,3%), Crowdfunding (6,9%), and Remittance (XNUMX%).

While using (usageThe highest fintech services came from Digital Wallet (79,9%), followed by Investment (31,5%), PayLater (30,9%), Online Multifinance (12%), Insurtech (11,8%), Crowdfunding (8,2 .2%), P6,2P Business Lending (2,4%), and Remittance (XNUMX%).

This indicates that the digital payment service ecosystem in Indonesia is starting to take shape and its adoption is much faster than other products. This situation can also be a challenge for Digiasia who plays at considering the intense competition that leads to a strong battle of money-burning strategies to catch up traction bigger--but not necessarily profitable.

Opportunities in P2P lending is also still wide open in Indonesia, especially from the productive sector. There are still 52 million micro and small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Indonesia as potential targets. Not only that, the growth of P2P lending in Indonesia also cannot be separated from the entry of institutional/corporate investors who can provide a wider range of loans.

New growth of online remittance services

One of Digiasia's interesting portfolios is an online remittance service. Strategic synergy with Mastercard can be a strengthening of RemitPro services or chapter new to make one ecosystem of all products Existing Digiasia.

According to the company, RemitPro is already available in 60 countries with the support of 200 payment agents. RemitPro also works with PT Eka Bakti Amerta Yoga as a partner in organizing remittance funds transfers, which allows disbursement of funds at 4.800 post offices and 10.000 BRI branches in Indonesia.

In general, the fintech industry in Indonesia is indeed encouraged to not only grow from a few types of services, such as: digital payments, investments, and P2P lending. Therefore, online remittance services are quite ogled because they have great opportunities.

Quoting Indonesian CNN, Bank Indonesia (BI) noted that the value of inter-country remittances from Indonesian Migrant Workers (TKI) working abroad in 2018 reached $10,8 billion or around Rp151 trillion. Currently, the number of migrant workers abroad reaches 3,65 million people.