Amartha, Fintech Owned By President Jokowi's Ex-Staff Has Disbursed IDR 1.5 Trillion Funding In Six Months This Year

Photo: Doc. Amartha

JAKARTA - PT Amartha Mikro Fintek recorded a positive performance in the first semester of 2022. Andi Taufan Garuda Putra's peer-to-peer lending financial technology (fintech) company, managed to disburse IDR 1.5 trillion in financing.

This achievement grew 78 percent when compared to the distribution of financing for the same period in 2021 of IDR 870 billion. Chief Financial Officer Amartha Ramdhan Anggakaradibrata explained that the financing distribution was contributed by various lenders, both at the institutional level such as banking and individual retail lenders.

"Amartha is quite aggressive in promoting strategic collaboration with the banking sector such as BPD, BPR, and the National Bank to accelerate the distribution of financing for the growth of MSMEs in rural areas," he said in an official statement, Thursday, July 14.

For information, Amartha's boss, Andi Taufan Garuda Putra, was recorded to have been trusted by President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) as a special staff, before he resigned in April 2020.

Amartha itself was founded in 2010 and is a pioneer of fintech lending in Indonesia. In its activities, the company empowers women ultra micro-entrepreneurs in rural areas by providing group-based business capital loans, ranging from IDR 3 million to IDR 10 million, accompanied by financial literacy education and entrepreneurship training.

Ramdhan stated that in the midst of widespread economic problems, his party continued to strive to maintain healthy and stable financial performance throughout the first semester of this year.

"This is evidenced by the increasing number of capital disbursements. The source of financing is dominated by institutional lenders such as banks, which is more than 60 percent, followed by individual lenders," said Ramdhan.

Amartha's capital distribution is focused outside Java with a portion of more than 65 percent. This achievement, according to Ramdhan, is one of Amartha's commitments to encourage equitable financial inclusion and development of welfare in remote areas.

Amartha maintains loan quality by implementing a machine learning-based credit scoring system. Until now, the company claims that the Non-Performing Loan (NPL) in Amartha is stable below 0.3 percent.

In fact, some operational areas are said to have excellent repayment rates. For example, the repayment rates in North Sumatra and West Sumatra are 100 and 99.97 percent, respectively.

To reach millions of other tough women, Amartha plans to expand its operational areas to the provinces of Lampung, Bengkulu, and Gorontalo. Therefore, with the need for expansion and historically sound financial performance, Amartha also targets to recruit 1,800 new workers this year.

“Amartha is optimistic that she can reach more strong women through inclusive financial services. However, collaboration with many parties is needed to accelerate the distribution of capital. Therefore, Amartha opens opportunities for all parties to jointly promote Indonesian MSMEs through Amartha," concluded Ramdhan.