OVO lead in Cashless Payment Race in Indonesia

OVO has been partnering with online-based ride-hailing service Grab since December last year, while also targeting brick-and-mortar shops and restaurants across Indonesia.

“We see this landmark partnership as a validation of our strategy to enable payments for all Indonesian companies, both online and offline. Cash is a very difficult habit to break and consumers will only switch to cashless if it’s easier and safer than cash,” said Harianto Gunawan, director of enterprise payments at OVO.

OVO chief executive Jason Thompson said the company expects a surge in new users and additional transactions from the e-commerce platform.

“We have a very bullish outlook as we close out 2018. Having established ourselves as the No. 1 mobile payment platform by transaction volume, this partnership with Tokopedia and our push into e-commerce will further accelerate our growth,” Thompson said.

The company said OVO is now available in 90 percent of shopping malls across the country, offering cashless payment options to customers at hypermarkets, department stores, coffee shops, cinemas, parking operators, hospital chains and food and beverage outlets.

It has also set a target to expand QR-code payments to 100,000 small and medium enterprises by the end of this year.

OVO’s online-to-offline business comprises its partnerships with Grab and Kudo, a service that allows individual agents to sell digital products, such as phone credit, tickets or insurance, to customers. Kudo currently has about 1.7 million agents in its network.

OVO said its latest deal with Tokopedia would allow it to reach 93 percent of districts in Indonesia currently served by the e-commerce platform. It also plans to secure more deals with other e-commerce platforms.