JAKARTA. Publicly listed lender Bank Bukopin is preparing the pilot project for Payment Point Online Bukopin (PPOB), an online payment system aimed at expanding access to its services and products.

Under the project, Bukopin plans to employ 16,000 of its own agents, an executive said. 

“For starters, we will conduct the pilot project at 10 PPOB points in South Jakarta and West Java. Currently, we already have 26,000 PPOB points and we expect the number to increase to 31,000 by the end of this year,” Bukopin retail director Agus Hernawan said on Tuesday.

Agus said the lender had not allocated specific funds for the pilot project, as agents working at the designated PPOB points already had their own mobile phones to serve customers.

The branchless banking program is set to be launched by the Financial Services Authority (OJK) and participating banks in March as part of the effort to increase access to finance throughout Indonesia, where only 20 percent of its more than 240 million persons have access to banks.

In December last year, the OJK issued a regulation on branchless banking, code-named “Laku Pandai”, which sought to capitalize on the high penetration of mobile phones in the country, where there is nearly a 1:1 ratio of citizens to cell phones. 

Under the regulation, domestic banks participating in the program will partner with local agents to provide basic banking services to customers, especially low-income people in remote places.

OJK chairman Muliaman D. Hadad said recently that the program, which is expected to generate up to Rp 200 trillion (US$15.67 billion) in savings within the next five years, would go hand-in-hand with a similar program promoted by Bank Indonesia (BI), dubbed “Digital Financial Services” (LKD). 

In the LKD program, however, only banks with a core capital exceeding Rp 30 trillion, known as BUKU IV banks, are able to participate.

To support the pilot project, Bukopin signed a partnership on Tuesday with PT Citra Prima Mandiri (Columbia), a furniture and electronics multi-financing retailer, whose 400 outlets would act as Bukopin’s PPOB sites.

Agus said the partnership would provide additional fee-based income for the bank, even though it had yet to calculate the target, stating that “we can begin setting a growth target for fee-based income from the partnership once the PPOB is installed in all 400 Columbia outlets.”

According to Agus, as of September 2014, Bukopin posted around Rp 800 billion in fee-based income, generated in part by transactions through the bank’s PPOB points.

Last year, the lender posted Rp 50.4 trillion in loans, of which Rp 32.33 trillion went to retail segments. The bank also booked Rp 64.1 trillion in third-party funding (DPK) between January and September last year.

Columbia Group chairman Leo Chandra said the partnership would enable the company to provide a real-time online bill-payment service.

“The service will also expand to include airplane and train tickets, as well as mobile phone credit vouchers,” adding that Columbia customers would be able to pay make payments on furniture or electronics purchases through Bukopin’s PPOB.

Columbia chief operating officer Darwin Leo said the company, which was established in 1982, expected to increase sales by between 15 percent 20 percent as demand for home appliances would increase in the weak economy. (Grace D. Amianti)

Editor: Yudho Winarto