Tag: Indonesia

Jakarta, Indonesia – Froyo Story, an agency under digital holding ALVA, has been appointed as digital agency partner by Indonesian banking and financial services company OCBC NISP. The mandate will be for a 12-month period.

Amir Widjaya, OCBC NISP’s head of marketing and lifestyle business division, said, “The appointment was made to assist the bank in achieving its purpose – to encourage Millennials and Generation Z to be more financially fit through fresher, more creative, and more relevant approach.”

The mandate will see OCBC NISP and Froyo Story creating a plan with a digital manoeuvre strategy that applies a creative, novel concept. This creative approach will be a key to achieving the bank’s grand mission. The digital campaign is about to involve Millennials and Generation Z through various social media channels by means of a number of creative and distinctive digital activities.

Zehrina Riskyankeiko, director of Froyo, commented, “We are pleased to welcome the second quarter of the year by signing a partnership agreement with one of the largest banks in Indonesia, OCBC NISP.”

Jakarta, Indonesia – As the financial services industry in Indonesia is returning to a state of normalcy, local banks and insurers are encouraged to step up their engagement strategies amidst a changing demographic landscape in the country, new data from sales engagement solutions provider Vymo.

According to the insights, around 73% of consumers say a differentiated experience, not just an acceptable experience, is what it takes for a customer to remain loyal. Meanwhile leading banks and insurers will use relevant and responsible personalization as a key differentiator to create loyal clients, while dedicated advisors will be responsible for creating stronger brand loyalty for customers.

It also noted that financial service institutions will need to build a salesforce that can adapt, attract and retain the loyalties of Indonesia’s digital-savvy consumer class with considerable spending power. While the quality of financial products and services from data utilisation has improved significantly, customer expectations in terms of product relevance, personalised buying experience, and post-sales support are key differentiators in the digital landscape.

Rajesh Sabhlok, managing director for APAC at Vymo, said, “Previously, lifestyle insurance was based on life stages. Someone starts a family, you talk to them about the increased cover they need. They change their jobs, there’s a salary hike, you advise them to set aside a part as insurance. But today, you can’t meet them in person. Here’s where technology enables remote engagement with customers.”

Jakarta, Indonesia – Indonesia’s consumer payments platform Flip has secured a Series B funding round led by Tencent, with participation from Block, Inc. (formerly Square, Inc.) and existing investor Insight Partners.

This new funding brings Flip’s total Series B to more than $100 million and follows on the heels of Flip’s first Series B round in December 2021, which was co-led by Sequoia Capital India, Insight Partners, and Insignia Ventures Partners. 

With the newly secured funding, Flip will be ramping up its workforce with a focus on engineering and product teams, investing in new product and technology development to provide a higher quality of service, and further accelerating its business expansion.

Flip aims to be the world’s most customer-centric financial technology company by enabling individuals and businesses to conduct fair, low-cost financial transactions from anywhere to anyone on a digital platform. Its products include online P2P (peer-to-peer) payments with interbank transfers to more than 100 domestic banks, international remittances, e-wallet top-ups, and business solution products.

Rafi Putra Arriyan, Flip’s co-founder and CEO, shared that they are laser-focused on helping millions of Indonesians, both individuals and businesses, execute various money transactions at a low cost through their platform. 

“We believe in the vast potential of P2P (peer-to-peer) payment because it is customary in Indonesia to send money via transfer for both personal, family, or household purposes. Despite many others trying and failing, we have succeeded in capturing the market because of our customer-focused understanding,” said Arriyan.

Meanwhile, Gita Prihanto, Flip’s chief operating officer, commented that they are thrilled to welcome Tencent and Block, who share the same purpose of making fintech accessible to everyone in Indonesia. 

“The knowledge and expertise from our strong partners, both renowned global firms and angel investors, will help us to grow our business amid the challenging times facing today’s global market and tech landscape. This investment phase invigorates our aspiration to have an even greater positive impact on society by continuing to expand our fintech solutions and by promoting the digital economy ecosystem in Indonesia,” said Prihanto.

Indonesia – Global confectionery company Cadbury has launched a new TVC for its Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate brand, reinforcing the brand’s ethos of ‘generosity’ and brand platform of ‘goodness in everyone’ to consumers and markets in the SEA region.

The TVC, which was created in collaboration with creative agency Ogilvy, was developed with the objective to demonstrate the Cadbury goodness or the ‘Rasakan Lembutnya Kebaikan’, which in English translates to ‘Taste/Feel the softness of goodness’. Its story is anchored in the universal truth of not judging a book by its cover, to go beyond snap judgment and allowing softness in action and reaction, which manifests into a little more goodness around us. 

Cadbury said that the authentic tone of the brand and the storytelling which has the duality of ‘goodness in us’, as well as the product, is captured in the story and also breaks ad stereotypes in the region.

Nikhil Nicholas, Cadbury’s chocolate category lead for SEA, commented, “We fell in love with the script and it’s amazing to see it come to life on screen. Rasakan Lembutnya Kebaikan is our way of marrying both product and purpose for Cadbury Dairy Milk by showing how softness leads to goodness which speaks to the heart of this piece of communication.”

Meanwhile, Nicolas Courant, chief creative officer at Ogilvy Singapore, said that their teams in SEA came together and undertook a massive strategic and creative exploration process across Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines, over a 6-month period to bring this story to life. 

“It was a true reflection of our commitment to borderless creativity and to Cadbury as a brand. In some markets our relationship with Cadbury stretches over 50 years, so we could tap into an immense amount of knowledge and experience across the network,” added Courant.

The TVC is now available in Indonesia and Malaysia, and is set to launch in the Philippines in July.

Jakarta, Indonesia – Ginee, an e-commerce merchant services technology platform in Southeast Asia, has announced a partnership with TikTok Shop to provide a new online shopping experience for brands and merchants to reach their consumers through TikTok Shop, an exclusive and innovative marketplace where entertainment meets commerce that is fully integrated into TikTok, bringing together online sellers, buyers, and creators. 

The collaboration with TikTok Shop is one example of Ginee Ads, which integrates with multiple online advertising platforms to help businesses grow sales and better manage advertising spend.

Since its launch in early 2020, Ginee has supported over 130,000 businesses and sellers, processing USD 2.7 billion in gross merchandise value. Ginee provides a SaaS Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform to help brands and online sellers with day-to-day operations and customer relationship management via multiple marketplaces, as well as warehouse management services (WMS).

Currently, over 2,000 brands in Indonesia on Ginee are also on TikTok Shop, which held a month-long TikTok Shopping Ramadan Sale ending on 25 April. Over the entire month, total livestreams received almost 2 billion views, translating into a gross merchant value (GMV) sales increase of almost 92 per cent. Among the brands who saw a boost to their website and sales was Yongki Komaladi, one of the largest shoe, sandals, and accessories retailers in Indonesia. A Ginee customer since June 2021, Yongki has had over 450 SKU pages listed on the Ginee platform.

Yongki Komaladi’s, Sales Manager Reza , said, “During the recent Ramadan, we used Ginee Ads and its integration with TikTok Shop to really tap into the platform’s vibrant user community, not just for brand exposure and drive sales, but also to streamline the purchase process and drive conversion. The embedded product anchors in the form of short videos and livestream format on TikTok Shop really makes it easy for us to have effective, meaningful engagements with our customers at scale.”

Ginee’s Head of Southeast Asia, Evelyin Wu, commented, “Ginee’s mission is to help our partners and sellers like Yongki manage and grow their businesses more efficiently.”

Wu added, “Ginee Ads is one of our newest product innovations where we collaborate via system and API integration with leading innovative platforms like TikTok Shop, enabling our merchants to run simple and effective campaigns to drive traffic and conversion on their SKU pages and online stores. We are really proud and excited about this collaboration with TikTok Shop.”

Jakarta, Indonesia – To facilitate SMEs and shippers in shipping and streamline the shipping cost, Ninja Xpress uses a dimension weight and scanning (DWS) system technology for more accurate and efficient package counting results. To date, more than 120 DWS machines, which guarantee not only weight accuracy but also package dimensions, have been used at Ninja Xpress sorting centres in the Jakarta, West Java, and Central Java areas, which are included in the top five origins of Ninja Xpress goods shipments throughout 2021.

According to research, as many as 21% of SMEs said that one of the main obstacles they experienced was the high shipping cost. Weight and dimensions become important components that determine the shipping cost.

Andi Djoewarsa, CMO of Ninja Xpress, shared, “With the DWS machine which measures the weight and dimensions of packages accurately and automatically, Ninja Xpress hopes to reduce the counting difference with shippers so that the invoice process is faster, which ultimately makes their cash flow more efficient. Ninja Xpress plans to add more than 200 DWS machines by the end of 2022 to better accommodate the needs of shippers’ volume of packages across Indonesia.”

The DWS machine used by Ninja Xpress can perform weight measurements with an accuracy of up to 50 grams and dimensions of up to 2 cm. The capacity of this machine reaches 50 kg and the maximum dimensions are 70 x 50 x 40 cm.

Additionally, one of the advantages of this machine is the 3D stereo camera feature that can capture the size, weight, dimensions, and image of the package simultaneously to be sent to the database system by scanning the barcode in the package so that it has authentic evidence.

In the near future, Ninja Xpress plans to add hundreds of DWS machines at its sorting centres in East Java and Bali because the area is included in the top five areas of Ninja Xpress package origins. In addition, this machine will also be placed in sorting centres on Sumatra Island including Medan to accommodate the volume of Ninja Xpress packages throughout Indonesia. With this addition, Ninja Xpress hopes that more than 95 per cent of the packages delivered can be accurately weighed and measured.

Shah Alam, Malaysia – Razer Fintech, the financial technology arm of Razer, the global lifestyle brand for gamers, has announced the acquisition of PT E2Pay Global Utama (E2Pay), one of the B2B2C digital payment facilitators and e-money players in Indonesia. Razer Fintech is already a O2O (offline to online) digital payment network in Southeast Asia, and this acquisition marks its further expansion into Indonesia.

E2Pay, which was founded in 2012, offers merchants and financial institutions a variety of payment solutions, including payment gateway, e-money, and remittance service licenses in Indonesia. These services complement Razer Merchant Services, Razer Fintech’s business-to-business arm in the region, which helps its 60,000 merchants make cross-border payments to the region’s most populous country.

E2Pay’s payment gateway supports high-growth e-Commerce verticals, including online marketplaces, professional services, travel & tourism, as well as other segments throughout Indonesia, with some of E2Pay’s most notable merchants consisting of Tokopedia, Bukalapak, Traveloka and Blibli.com.

The Indonesian fintech player also connects major payment channels and supports local and alternative payment methods, including card schemes, internet banking, mobile banking, e-money, virtual accounts, offline points, and personal financing to provide a comprehensive local payment platform for more than 500 merchants in the region.

The E2Pay e-money platform, MBayar, serves over 500,000 registered users and supports payments for credit or data plans, bill payments, QR payments, cash withdrawals and fund transfer services.

Razer Fintech’s CEO, Lee Li Meng, said that E2Pay is one of Indonesia’s very few digital payment players that has a comprehensive set of licenses across various payment gateway services, e-money, and remittance. 

“The acquisition of E2Pay allows us to accelerate our entry into Indonesia, one of the fastest-growing digital economies in Southeast Asia, as well as be able to better serve the digital payment needs of our regional and global merchants as the single partner of choice. I look forward to working closely with the E2Pay team to grow our presence in Indonesia considerably in the years to come,” Meng said.

E2Pay’s chairman, Rudy Danandjaja, commented, “E2Pay are very happy to have Razer Fintech onboard. We hope that the synergy between E2Pay and Razer Fintech will enable both organizations to tap on our merchant base to grow, expand and scale our platform’s reach across Southeast Asia.”

Jakarta, Indonesia – Southeast Asian automotive marketplace platform, Carro, has invested US$53.8m to become a 50% shareholder of Indonesian consumer automotive and transportation company MPMX’s car rental arm MPMRent.

This investment will see Carro providing MPMX with an end-to-end ecosystem for consumers in Indonesia, including an online marketplace, financing, and rental, as well as repair, and aftersales.

The move is part of MPMX’s continuous effort to unlock the value of existing businesses, as well as invest in innovation and accelerate its digital transformation. Through this, Carro will be bringing its fully integrated online ecosystem from car marketplace to financing, big data, AI access to a fast-growing vehicle database, and relevant computer vision and pricing algorithms technologies. 

As a result, MPMRent will now be able to solidify its leading market position as the leading regional car rental company in SEA, providing access to a rapidly growing network of workshops, strategic nationwide rental and auction locations, and a profitable and diversified customer base, as well as strong operational capabilities.

Suwito Mawarwati, MPMX’s group CEO, commented that they are pleased to announce the agreement with Carro, and they are also grateful for the support and active role of their parent shareholder, Saratoga, in realizing this partnership.

He further shared that the company and Saratoga believe that Carro is an excellent partner that would be able to add strategic value to the business of MPMX through its standing track records of success and operational experiences in a fully-integrated online automotive ecosystem.

“This is an important and exciting next chapter for MPMRent whereas this partnership will create a one-of-a-kind integrated online and offline automotive ecosystem in Indonesia that offers a complete product and services offering for our customers using the marketplace, from rental and financing to insurance serving B2B and B2C markets,” said Mawarwati.

Meanwhile, Aaron Tan, CEO of Carro, noted that they remain steadfast and committed to investing and advancing their business in Indonesia despite the uncertain global macro environment. 

“We look forward to partnering with MPM to supercharge growth and transform the customer’s experience through the hundreds of engineers and data scientists across the CARRO Group,” said Tan.

Jakarta, Indonesia – IDN Media, the media platform for Millennials and Gen Z in Indonesia, has secured a Series-D investment led by Mayapada Group and KMIF, with participation from East Ventures, OCBC NISP Ventura, and Dentsu Group, as well as V Media Ventures. 

IDN Media aims to democratise information for all Indonesians, especially Millennials and Gen Z. With a comprehensive and end-to-end ecosystem, it operates four major business verticals, namely content platform, digital media, commercial, and entertainment. 

The newly secured investment will not only allow IDN Media to accelerate the growth of its users through the super-app and ecosystem strategy, but also advance its technology, strengthen the teams, and execute strategic partnerships and acquisitions. 

Winston Utomo, IDN Media’s founder and CEO, shared that while this Series-D investment is an important milestone in their journey, the mission to democratise information for all Indonesians is always a work in progress. 

“We will keep working very hard to become a 100+ years old sustainable and healthy company that brings positive impacts on society. One step at a time, for a better Indonesia,” said Utomo.

Meanwhile, William Utomo, IDN Media’s founder and COO, noted “The next eight years will be very different from the past 8 years. After the Series-D investment has been secured, we have prepared several strategic initiatives to be executed as soon as possible. This will be a very exciting new era for IDN Media.”

Dato’ Sri Prof. Dr. Tahir, Mayapada Group’s founder and chairman, said, “We deeply believe in the vision of brothers Winston Utomo and William Utomo. They are young, ambitious, and hardworking individuals who have a dream of making a difference in the future of Indonesia. Mayapada Group is very excited to partner with IDN Media to bring Indonesia to greater heights.”

Jakarta, Indonesia – Super, an Indonesian social commerce platform serving tier-2 and tier-3 cities and rural areas, has completed a US$70m oversubscribed Series C round led by NEA, with additional investment from Insignia Ventures Partners, SoftBank Ventures Asia, and DST Global Partners, as well as Amasia, and B Capital, amongst many others.

Super leverages a hyperlocal logistics platform to deliver consumer goods to agents within 24 hours of the order time. It partners with community agents such as individuals and warungs to aggregate and distribute millions of US dollars’ worth of goods to their communities each month.

The platform has launched two private-label brands that have realized product-market fit and will invest a portion of their new capital towards developing additional FMCG private-label brands in the next several years. Moreover, Super will be using the new fund to launch cosmetics products, as the desire for this segment is rising across Indonesia. It will also launch a feature for community agents to track end-consumer transactions to help community agents offer better-tailored experiences for the end customers.

Steven Wongsoredjo, Super’s CEO and co-founder, shared that Super is going after a huge untapped market; thus, they will deploy this investment to enable equitable access for people in Kalimantan, Bali, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, Maluku, and Papua over the next few years.

“We will help more multinational, and provincial FMCG suppliers tap into new markets in rural areas and empower more community leaders to optimize their income and have a better quality of life,” said Wongsoredjo.

Meanwhile, Gisella Tjoanda, Super’s head of strategy and business development, noted, “As Super is entering its 4th year in business, we understand the importance of data collection and analysis as one of the keys to success in launching new SKUs. Therefore, we are going to expand our engineering team to improve Super’s warehouse management system by implementing machine learning to help Super better utilise data to expand its SKUs in the future.”

Andrew Schoen, NEA’s partner, commented that they are thrilled to back the whole Super team, as the platform is positioned to improve the lives of the 260 million Indonesians who reside outside of Indonesia’s capital city.

“Super is going to continuously improve access to basic goods, create meaningful and rewarding jobs, and streamline supply chains for Indonesia’s tier-2, tier-3, and rural regions,” said Schoen.