The Strategy For Picking Up Digital Bank Balls Is Not Appropriate, This Is What Observers Say

JAKARTA - Observers consider that the pick-up strategy by digital banks by placing their agents in shopping centers is not seen as the right step.

Economist and Director of Celios (Center of Economic and Law Studies) Bhima Yudhistira said this step is still not appropriate because it will incur large marketing costs if it is still done manually. He considered that digital banks should use social media or promos with integration into other applications.

"The year 2022 is a year of very large integration of the digital ecosystem with superapps," said Bhima to VOI, Monday, January 31.

According to him, the opportunity to collaborate with other parties is still very wide open in the future, especially if digital banks are still targeting millennials as the target market.

"With collaboration, customers can carry out cross-platform transactions according to their needs without the need to download too many applications," he added.

In addition, digital banks can also collaborate with MSMEs, for example by distributing short-term loans to e-commerce merchants.

For SMEs themselves, continued Bhima, the existence of a digital bank can help them carry out financial control.

"Imagine in various surveys as many as 80 percent of MSMEs need financing to restart their business during the pandemic. So the opportunity for digital bank lending is very wide open," he said.