Youtap Indonesia's Ambition to Become a Technology Company Focusing on "Merchant"

Currently, store and restaurant cashiers are increasingly filled with various kinds of technology products, from payment platforms to online cashiers. Youtap Indonesia, a platform that labels itself as a trading friend application, targets this segment by offering various solutions for business people, such as point of sales, payment, and record keeping.

Youtap Indonesia is j Salim Group and Youtap Global, a New Zealand-based technology company that provides real-time e-money payment processing, digital payment marketplaces and platforms point-of-sales for a fast-growing market.

Previously, Youtap, with a global capacity, had already tested cooperation with several telecommunications companies in Asia in providing digital payment systems (back end).

The company claims to be the first to integrate all these solutions in one platform to be used by all lines of business. In addition to Youtap Indonesia, players who have a slice of business in the SaaS sector include Moka and Qasir.

The SME market is one of the most attractive markets, because BPS data shows the number of SMEs in Indonesia reaches around 60 million units and accounts for 61% of the country's GDP.

Business Model

To DailySocial, CEO of Youtap Indonesia Herman Suharto expressed his ambition to become a platform that merchant-centric. "Everyone focuses on consumer. Many applications have been developed for consumers. We want to be the firstcompany which focus on merchants." 

According to its website, Indonesian Youtube offers a variety of solutions in three types of services for business people, namely trading applications, payment systems, and report generation. In terms of monetization, companies package their products with a subscription system (subscription models) and offers several package options that have different benefits. Price offers start from free up to IDR 35 thousand per month.

Youtap Indonesia positions itself as an aggregator between merchant and issue. Currently issue already integrated are Linkaja, Dana, Ovo, GoPay, and ShopeePay. With a background in technology companies that are experienced in providing systems backend, he believes that he can present the most complete solution for business people in Indonesia.

"What makes us different is that we start from backend, so in terms of the system we have robust. We can present a complete solution from the merchant's and issuer's point of view. This platform prioritizes transaction speeds of up to 1 second," Suharto said.

Plans for 2020

Youtap Indonesia's long-term target is to become the largest in Indonesia for transaction acceptance networks and also to reach potential outside of payment transactions. In 2020, the company has a target to reach 1,5 million merchant.

Some pilot project has been launched, one of which is at the Bintaro Market. They also target the SME market which is increasingly mushrooming in Indonesia. Currently activation rate claimed to have reached 65%-75%. Average use device themselves, but there are some who also use device from Youtap Indonesia.

The plan is to target 600 markets this year, especially in Java. His party also admitted that they had prepared a team of local technicians who were ready to be seconded for various local issues related to the use of Youtap Indonesia technology.

He acknowledged that there were challenges in market and merchant education. They try to deal with that with a personal approach between the team and merchant. This is recognized in order to smooth the course of the entire ecosystem,

"Currently our team has 30 [people]. The initial focus is the micro team, of course there are for consumer goods engagement [..]. The plan is to increase the team to 70 [people] in order to reach more and more merchant," added Suharto.