This Is BI's Strategy To Strengthen Consumer Protection In The Digital Age

JAKARTA - Bank Indonesia (BI) continues to strengthen consumer protection in the midst of the massive development of the digital ecosystem to ensure legal certainty for consumers so that they are protected from unfair and harmful practices.

This is increasingly important in line with the development of the digital economy which encourages the proliferation of financial services that are filled with cyber risks, data leakage, transparency and fraud.

Deputy Governor of Bank Indonesia (BI) Juda Agung conveyed 3 (three) main things that need to be the attention of the authorities in their responsibility to create a safe ecosystem for all consumers, especially for vulnerable communities.

First, jointly prioritize digital financial literacy to empower consumers by sharing knowledge about financial services.

Second, uphold the regulatory framework to support innovation while increasing market integrity by maintaining consumer identity data and transactions.

Third, the need for collaboration between regulators, technology companies and financial institutions to increase consumer protection. In this collaboration, authorities need to bridge institutions with communities to remote areas.

Juda said that in this digital era, people are overshadowed by various risks, the modes that people often experience, including SIM swaps, databases, Ponzi Scheme and the rise of unauthorized service providers. The latest mode that develops is sending.apk files through a communication media that can suck up the victim's data and financial funds.

"Regarding this mode, Indonesia is one of the countries that has the highest number of victims of apk' file mode fraud in the world with a portion of 15 percent globally," he explained.

Judo said this was a regulator's concern and made this case one of the main focuses of consumer education and protection. So that people need to be aware of this, including other modes.

Meanwhile, the basic consumer effort in avoiding this is to maintain the confidentiality of personal data and ensure the truth of the information received.