Indonesian Payment Company Artajasa Teams Up With Mastercard

Mastercard announced it has made a deal with Artajasa Pembayaran Elektronis, an Indonesia-based payment switching company, to work together on the country’s gateway apparatus for payments, according to Reuters.

The deal was given the green light by the country’s central bank in July, and will cover the processing of debit card operations. The national payment gateway system was launched in December of 2017 to ensure that every debit card transaction in the country was handled using Indonesian technology.

Indonesia’s central bank has imposed a 20 percent limit on foreign ownership of any business that offers digital payment services in the country’s system.

According to data from Bank Indonesia, debit card transactions in the country are flourishing and profitable. In 2018, there were 6.4 billion transactions, worth $485.79 billion. Mastercard said the collaboration could eventually include eCommerce payments.

Another Indonesian company, Go-Jek, recently had an ongoing Series F fundraising round, and Visa jumped on board as both an investor and collaborator. The two companies are working together to offer more options for cashless payments and smoother transactions for consumers across Indonesia and Southeast Asia.

“We’ve been humbled by investor support over the course of our current fundraising round, as they have truly shown confidence in our long-term vision of powering the next phase of technology-enabled growth in Southeast Asia,” said Go-Jek President Andre Soelistyo.

Go-Jek’s Go-Pay is Indonesia’s market leader in mobile on-demand services and payments platforms, aiming to accelerate services across the 640 million underserved and unbanked consumers of Southeast Asia.

“We are excited about this partnership because Visa and Go-Jek share common objectives. We both want to make everyday life more convenient, whether it’s how people move around town in Southeast Asia’s fast-growing urban areas, or making it easier for people to pay and be paid all over the world,” said Visa Regional President Asia Pacific Chris Clark.