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Amartha Appoints Rudiantara as Commissioner, Simultaneously Releases “Amartha Plus” Application

Amartha disbursed a loan of Rp914 billion in the first six months of 2021

Amartha announced that Rudiantara, former Minister of Communication and Information for the period 2014-2019, has now joined as President Commissioner effective July 1, 2021. Rudiantara's mature experience in technology is expected to contribute to the company's ambition to accelerate the digitization of MSMEs.

In a virtual press conference held by the company today (19/7), the Founder and Amartha CEO Andi Taufan Garuda Putra said that one of the important achievements of Rudiantara was to develop policies regarding digital infrastructure in the region remote to support SMEs.

“Amartha is honored to welcome Mr. Rudiantara to be part of Amartha's big exit. Amartha is optimistic that his presence will provide insight and wisdom in building leadership and partnerships with company stakeholders," he said.

Rudiantara also added. He said he was honored to be able to work with Amartha to accelerate financial services for groups unserved and underserved which cannot be served by the banking sector. According to him, not only focusing on microfinance, Amartha also focuses on the women's segment.

“This is the reason I joined Amartha. This is based on technology, but what makes it different is that they target MSMEs that have a broad social impact, MSMEs, women, are productive, and are sustainable. This is what makes me honored to join Amartha," said Rudiantara.

Amartha Plus app release

On the same occasion, Amartha's Chief Commercial Officer Hadi Wenas said the company launched the Amartha Plus application specifically for borrowing partners in Amartha to be more touched by technology. This application complements the previous two platforms devoted to field officers (field agent) and lenders.

The launch of this application is at the same time in the context of the realization of investment gains for $28 million led by Women's World Banking (WWB) through WWB Capital Partners II and MDI Ventures in early May 2021.7.19

“Before this application existed, field agent in charge of inputting the online registration process. But now partners can apply directly through the application, field agent we will be surveyer sampling, so the funds will be disbursed more quickly in about 15 minutes, "explained Hadi.

Amartha Plus currently has three features, namely Warung Loan Non Mitra, Warung Loan Mitra, and Amartha Pulsa/PPOB. In the first feature, the company becomes the product's financial partner paylater for stall partners who are included in the Sampoerna Retail Community (SRC) network. This collaboration allows SRC's stall partners to pay the due date for each stock purchase.

"It's only been running in June, the number of partners who have joined is already hundreds of people batch first. Soon we are targeting tens of thousands because in this SRC networkThere are already millions of stalls, but there are hundreds of thousands already online.”

Next for the Warung Loan Mitra feature, it allows stall partners on the Amartha network to purchase FMCG product stock wholesale through Tanihub, an agritech partner that is partnered with the company. As of now, it has operated at 11 points in East Java, there are more than 100 partners who shop regularly, and there are more than 4 thousand SKUs available.

“Last is Amartha Pulsa which has more service straight forward for the purchase of pulses and PPOB. This service has been used in 93 points out of our 497 network points.”

Hadi said the presence of this new application could deepen smartphone penetration in Indonesia, especially in rural areas. "Next we will develop other innovations related to deeper smartphone penetration so that it can be used for business, and help partners become more less cash for the installment payment.”

Currently, of the 719 thousand Amartha partners who have joined as borrowers, around 60% of them are engaged in trading businesses, such as food stalls, grocery, fashion, children's toy shops, and others. The composition of food stall and grocery business owners dominates around 20%-30% in this business group.

Throughout the first half of this year, Amartha has disbursed loans of Rp914 billion, up 35% YOY to 203 thousand partners. Interestingly, about 60% of this distribution portfolio is channeled outside Java (Sumatra and Sulawesi). This figure increased by 196,62% YOY.

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Taufan said that this performance will continue to be improved considering that the need for microfinance outside Java is still very broad and has not been fully exploited by fintech players at this time. "We are targeting to empower up to 1 million partners by the end of this year," he concluded.

Business performance

According to OJK statistical data as of May 2021, there are 118 conventional and 9 sharia fintech lending providers. In total, the total assets owned reach 4,1 trillion Rupiah. The platforms also managed to accommodate around 8,7 million lender accounts (p2p) channeling 13,8 trillion Rupiah of funds.

Indonesia Fintech Lending Statistics May 2021 / OJK

From time to time the number of loan disbursements also continues to increase. The productive sector also tends to get a slightly larger portion than the consumptive sector.

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