Menkominfo Siap Basmi Pinjol Illegal

Minister of Communication and Information Budi Arie Setiadi. (photo: dock. Antara)

JAKARTA - Minister of Communication and Information Budi Arie Setiadi said his party was ready to surround illegal online lending (pinjol) practices that disturbed the public after his early position focused on dealing with gambling.

Budi said that one of the strategies to surround the practice of illegal online loans would be similar to the handling of online gambling, namely collaborating with cellular operators.

"I told the operator, this is gambling, don't use it anymore, immediately block it, this gambling now uses foreign numbers, don't use Indonesian numbers, right? Because we have surrounded gambling, we can't, now we just need to borrow it and so will we," he said in a discussion on the Merdeka Barat Forum (FMB) 9 in Jakarta as reported by ANTARA, Monday, August 21.

Budi said the handling and eradication of illegal online loans in Indonesia faced several challenges.

For example, perpetrators and servers connected to crime are abroad.

Every day the Ministry of Communication and Information closes and blocks as many as 20-25 accesses from foreign servers related to illegal online loans in coordination with the Financial Services Authority (OJK).

According to Budi, this clearly shows the need for special handling of cases of illegal online loan crimes.

The Minister of Communication and Information said that the phenomenon of digital-based financial crimes such as gambling and online loans is basically connected and this condition also adds to the challenges of handling these crimes.

"Initially from gambling, because the money has run out, he will run away because the conditions are easy and fast to disburse. In the end, because he can't pay, it leads to a criminal act," he said.

Reflecting on these challenges, the eradication of crimes that occur in the digital space needs to be carried out holistically so that the problems in society can be resolved thoroughly.

In addition to collaborating with cellular operators to stop promoting illegal online loans through telecommunications service providers, the Ministry of Communication and Information also continues to collaborate with related institutions including law enforcers such as the National Police.

In this way, it is hoped that it can narrow the space for perpetrators and makers of illegal online loan applications so that they can ultimately reduce the number of digital-based financial crimes.