Difficult To Access, Only 22 Percent Of Persons With Disabilities Are Touched By Financial Access

Chief Executive of the Behavior Supervisory of Financial, Education, and Protection Business Actors of OJK Consumers, Friderica Widyasari Dewi (Photo: Maria Trisnawati/VOI)

BALIGE - The Financial Services Authority (OJK) seeks to boost literacy and financial access for the community, especially people with disabilities.

Chief Executive of the Behavior Supervisory of Financial, Education, and Protection Business Actors of OJK Consumers, Friderica Widyasari Dewi said, based on data, people with disabilities in Indonesia amounted to 10 percent of the total population of Indonesia or 28 million people.

Kiki said, Frederica's nickname, of the 28 million, only 22 percent of people with disabilities were touched by banking access.

"This means that there are still 78 percent of our brothers and sisters from around 28 million who must be assisted to be able to access finances," said Kiki in his remarks at the Financial Education for Persons with Disabilities in Toba Regency, Friday 9 August.

Kiki also said that she had been visited by Komnas Disabilities who complained about the low number of people with disabilities who had access to finance.

"We are often offered to open accounts, insurance, credit cards but it turns out that the deaf are something that is luxury. It's hard to get if there's no affirmatve action. Never mind getting access to credit, getting basic financial products is already difficult for them," explained Kiki.

This reason then became one of the drivers of the issuance of POJK 22 in 2023 which had just been launched.

"One of our programs that we have just announced is Tuntas, one account, one disability," he added.

Kiki further said that OJK is collaborating with Toba Regency to form a Regional Financial Access Acceleration Team (TPAKD) which is a forum for OJK cooperation with local governments to provide literacy for the community.

"We also have a Pursuit program. One Account One Student has 57.8 million accounts," he concluded.