JAKARTA: US venture capital firm Ribbit Capital, a financial technology (fintech) solution partner of the world’s largest retailer Walmart, (pic) has bought a minority stake in a Jakarta-based digital bank that also counts Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC as an investor.
JAKARTA (The Straits Times/Asia News Network): US venture capital Ribbit Capital, a fintech solution partner of the world's largest retailer Walmart, has bought a minority stake in a Jakarta-based digital bank which counts Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC as an investor.
(March 5): Bank Jago will begin offering some banking services via mobile app this month before extending full-fledged products including loans, securing early-mover advantage in Indonesia’s booming digital banking industry.
The lender, which received fresh capital from ride-hailing and payments giant Gojek and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte, will then embed its services on Gojek’s platform this year, President Director Kharim Siregar and Commissioner Anika Faisal said in a joint interview from Jakarta. That would let Gojek’s tens of millions of users instantly open a bank account with Jago and manage their finances via the Gojek app.
With the
recent announcement that Indonesia’s Bank Jago will go fully digital, the trend
of digital banking is on track to open up financial services to populations
across the archipelago who have so far struggled to see benefits from
traditional banks.
Indonesia’s
Bank Jago is set to become the country’s first fully digitized bank. While the
bank will provide traditional services for accounts, deposits, loans and
investments, the bank will not have any physical branches or ATMs. Bank Jago
will provide services exclusively online.
In December
2020, the bank announced that it would expand its existing strategic
partnership with ride hailing service Gojek in order to collaborate on financial