OJK Chairman Mahendra Siregar: The Level Of Financial Absence In ASEAN Has Decreased Significantly In The Last 5 Years

Chairman of the Board of Commissioners of the Financial Services Authority (OJK) Mahendra Siregar. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Chairman of the Board of Commissioners of the Financial Services Authority (OJK) Mahendra Siregar reported that the level of financial exclusion in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) decreased significantly from 46 percent to 22.6 percent throughout 2017 to 2022.

"This means that as a group of ASEAN countries, it has far exceeded the regional financial exclusion rate of 30 percent," he said at the ASEAN Fest 2023: OJK Seminar on Financial Inclusion which was monitored virtually, Jakarta, quoted from Antara, Thursday, August 24.

As is known, there is the ASEAN 2025 Vision which seeks to advance ASEAN financial inclusion (availability). The first target to be achieved is to reduce the average financial exclusion in ASEAN from 44 percent to 30 percent, while the second target is to increase financial infrastructure readiness from 70 percent to 85 percent.

"If we look at the condition of each member state, we see that there are five ASEAN member countries that have succeeded in reducing their financial exclusion rate below 30 percent, namely Brunei, Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. However, there are still five ASEAN member countries whose financial exclusion rates are higher than 30 percent," said Mahendra.

For the second target, the level of readiness of the inclusion infrastructure in ASEAN is currently said to be at 83.6 percent. This figure is still below the ASEAN regional target of 85 percent by 2025.

However, there are six categories of readiness for financial inclusion infrastructure already above 85 percent and there are still four categories that are less than 85 percent.

Although ASEAN may be able to achieve the targets set according to the ASEAN Vision 2025, he continued, there is still a great risk of failing to achieve this target in each country due to the financial inclusion gap among ASEAN members.

According to him, in each ASEAN country, the same gap between urban communities and remote and rural areas is equally significant.

In Indonesia, if you travel to many remote areas, I'm sure you will see a lot of ideas expressed by villagers about how to increase their livelihood. However, they need to feel that they are part of the national economy, and it is important for ASEAN to take advantage of these ideas. We empower rural communities and remote areas because this is not just a social responsibility," he said.

If these villages are given the opportunity to develop the future, not only live day by day, he believes that these efforts will make a positive contribution to ASEAN's economic growth and spirit.

"Financial inclusion means an opportunity to provide facilities for those in need to plan, implement, and achieve the goal of increasing their livelihood and feel that they have a meaningful life," said the Chairman of the OJK Board of Commissioners.

As additional information, report what was conveyed by Mahendra from the UN Capital Development Fund entitled ASEAN Monitoring Progress Financial Inclusion 2022.