Explore Koku's Business Strategy in Indonesia, Offer SaaS Technology for Financial Institutions

Having previously announced expansion plan To Indonesia, Singapore-based financial technology startup Koku has currently held talks with three Indonesian companies to then use Koku's technology to offer technology solutions for foreign currency exchange (forex).

Koku's Founder & CEO Calvin Goh said that it was not possible to say which startups and financial institutions would use Koku's SaaS technology. He noted that so far the clients who have taken advantage of their technology are companies that want to expand overseas.

Koku has a target that by 2020 it can add 10 clients in Indonesia. This year Koku has secured USD 2 million in pre-series A funding led by Jason Zeng, Co-Founder of Tencent and Founder of Decent Capital.

"As a technology company, we want to help and equip startups to deepen their processes and technology. As for conventional companies, they can adopt technology and take advantage of our services such as Know Your Customer (KYC) to data processing. All can be customized by clients based on their needs. "

In particular, Indonesia is a focus country for Koku in Southeast Asia apart from the Philippines. Seeing the magnitude of the opportunities, usage trends smartphone which is widespread in Indonesia until there are still many people unbankable in Indonesia. Koku wants to adopt an agency system as a substitute for the services normally provided by banks.

"Most of our clients are companies or startups that fall into the LKBB (Non-Bank Financial Institution) category, have no intention ofdisrupt banking services, Koku wants to be tech enabler companies that need a unified system to design, develop and provide technology for the unserviceable," said Calvin.

Have a global network

As a foreign currency exchange technology solution that empowers non-bank money transfer operators, today Smell claims to be the first platform to be present in Indonesia. Although it has competitors in European countries to the United States, Koku specifically only targets Southeast Asia for market segmentation. It also has a global network that can be useful for their clients in Indonesia.

"We believe that currently Southeast Asia is the most relevant region for our business model. To launch the plan, especially in Indonesia, Koku will move to collaborate with expert partners in the local market. These partners include service industry players e-wallet, micro-lending and payment companies, as well as remittance and money-exchange businesses."

These partnerships with LKBBs will center around the integration of Koku technology into existing operations, ensuring partners have the ability to enter the market quickly and without disruption to their business. In addition, Koku could potentially explore opportunities to partner with supermarket and minimarket local communities, which will act as access points to financial services, will help people who do not have bank services to be more exposed to financial inclusion.

"For the first phase we still want to offer services to financial institutions to related startups, but for the next phase we also have plans to expand our business to establish partnerships with retail store outlets such as Indomaret to Alfamart," said Calvin.

Working with OJK and Bank Indonesia

One of Koku's priorities is to ensure its position as a financial company that is legal and has been trusted by regulators in Indonesia, in this case Bank Indonesia (BI) and the Financial Services Authority (OJK). Especially in terms of providing services and KYC technology which is still fully under the attention and supervision of the authorities.

Koku wants to make sure that the technology he has is reliable and guaranteed security. One of the technologies currently being developed and owned by Koku is the KYC process utilizing video as is being developed by Jenius of BTPN.

'We believe in this industry there is not yet'winner takes all' For this reason, we ensure that all regulations and requirements have been met in accordance with the request from the regulator, but we also establish partnerships with local partners who have permits and of course have a trusted position in Indonesia," said Calvin.

Calvin continues to be able to provide the most relevant services to financial companies, Koku doesn't want todisrupt all existing processes, but seek to increase their business and revenue utilizing technology and services owned by Koku by providing Koku's FX TechUp Suite which consists of three solutions namely White Label Remittance, Liquidity Providers Connect Solution, and API Solution.

“Expansion into Indonesia will depend largely on engaging the right partners. We want to ensure that our technology is adapted to local needs to support cultural needs and business needs,” concluded Calvin.