BRI Claims For Digital Transformation To Increase Financial Inclusion In Indonesia

Illustration (Photo: Doc. BRI)

JAKARTA PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia Tbk. (BRI) is said to continue to make digital transformation efforts combined with physical services or with the concept of a hybrid bank in order to answer the growing needs and challenges.

BRI President Director Sunarso said this initiative was also a strategic step in boosting financial inclusion in Indonesia.

"We consider that digitalization also has implications for reducing operational costs and operations risk," he said in a written statement on Tuesday, October 18.

According to Sunarso, as a bank that focuses on micro financing, the company has two main challenges, namely the high operational costs and also operational risks it faces.

"Therefore, digitization is very likely to reduce the various costs mentioned above," he said.

Sunarso added that BRI now comes with a hybrid bank strategy that is expected to reach people in all corners.

"But, then people who are not digital yet, we still have to serve it with the hybrid bank concept," he said.

On the same occasion, Deputy Minister of SOEs Kartika Wirjoatmodjo stated that the superiority of physical services directly and digitally offered by BRI has the potential to work on the community that has been categorized as bankable.

BRI must be consistent with an offline and online interaction approach. For people who are not familiar with digitizing services, BRI needs to educate and digitize business processes gradually," he said.

Furthermore, Kartika conveyed that the branchless banking innovation of Agent BRILink is considered capable of encouraging financial inclusion in Indonesia. In that way, continued Kartika, banking services can be present more closely by continuing to carry out a touch of digitalization in it.

"BRILink agents play an important role in serving the needs of public transactions, especially in areas that cannot be reached by banks," he said.

For information, BRILink's agent is recorded to have reached more than three-quarters or 77 percent of villages in Indonesia. As for the end of September 2022, the number of BRILink agents has reached 597,177 agents with a range of up to 58,095 villages.

Meanwhile, SOEs themselves have a big role in increasing the target of 90 percent financial inclusion in Indonesia in 2024 in accordance with the direction of the Financial Services Authority (OJK).