Top Up OVO Balance Now Available At 19,000 Indomaret Outlets Owned By Conglomerate Anthony Salim, Facilitating People Who Don't Have Access To Banks

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Good news from the OVO digital wallet. They announced a strategic partnership with PT Indomarco Prismatama (Indomaret) owned by conglomerate Anthony Salim as the owner of the largest minimarket network in Indonesia.

Now, OVO users can top up their OVO balance at all Indomaret branches in Indonesia, which has more than 19,000 branches spread across Sumatra, Batam, Java, Madura, Bali, NTB, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Maluku.

This is important considering that electronic money transactions are increasingly in demand by the public, as shown by Bank Indonesia data that up to the third quarter of 2021, it has increased by 45.05 percent (yoy) to Rp209.81 trillion.

For the unbanked and underbanked people, top-up balances offline are the main choice so they can make online transactions using electronic money such as OVO. Meanwhile, minimarkets are becoming increasingly relevant locations for topping up OVO balances, with the number of visitors increasing during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This is reinforced by research results from NielsenIQ which found that from January to April 2021, the national minimarket sales market share reached 39 percent of total retail transactions.

This achievement grew 2 percent from the same period the previous year. This figure shows how big the influence of the presence of minimarkets in people's daily lives.

OVO's Head of Corporate Communications, Harumi Supit, said that the collaboration between OVO and Indomaret significantly increased the capability and number of offline OVO balance charging locations as a joint effort to support the adoption of digital payment transactions in Indonesia, including in remote areas of Indonesia.

"This collaboration will certainly make it much easier for all users to access digital payment services, especially for people who are still very limited in access to financial services or do not yet have access to banks," Harumi said in a press release, quoted Tuesday 14.

Harumi added that this collaboration also has the potential to encourage the acceleration of digitalization in the regions in line with the government's goals, so that development is more equitable.

This is shown by the East Ventures-Digital Competitiveness Index 2021 research which states that digital services are still not evenly distributed, where the 5 provinces with the highest digital competitiveness are all located in the West Indonesia region, while the five lowest rankings are dominated by provinces in the Eastern Indonesia region.

This collaboration will provide positive added value for each company. Moreover, it is simultaneously capable of driving digital transformation.

"Partnering with OVO is a big breakthrough for us. OVO is known as one of the leading digital players. We believe that it is more practical and safe for people to top up their balances at Indomaret," said Microeconomics Executive Director of PT Indomarco Prismatama, Feki Oktavianus.

Users can top up OVO balances at Indomaret outlets with a minimum value of IDR 10,000 plus an admin fee of IDR 1,500 per transaction.

The method is very practical, users simply click the 'Top-up' feature on the OVO application, then select 'Indomaret' and enter the desired nominal balance, then press the confirmation button to get a payment code which will be notified to the cashier at Indomaret. Finally, users only need to pay the amount at the cashier and the OVO balance will be filled automatically.

As a celebration of the beginning of this collaboration, on 15-19 December 2021 and 22-26 December 2021, for every nominal balance above Rp250,000, users will get 200ml S-tee drink products for free.