Indonesian E-Wallet LinkAja Debuts In Jakarta

A state-owned e-wallet platform called LinkAja was launched on Sunday (June 30) in Jakarta, Indonesia, according to reports.

The service was supposed to launch in early March, but was repeatedly delayed. Digital payments in Indonesia are becoming more popular by the day, with more than 90 percent of the 264 million people in the country owning cell phones.

About 2.1 percent of non-cash transactions in the country used e-money, and that number is expected to increase to 24 percent by 2027.

LinkAja was created by a merger of Telkomsel, an e-wallet firm, and lenders Bank Mandiri, BRI and BNI. LinkAja is a consortium of state-owned businesses including lender BTN, oil and gas firm Pertamina and insurance firm Jiwasraya.

Finarya, the company that manages LinkAja, said its services are available at 150,000 merchants across Indonesia. The new platform can cover upwards of 400 digital products, including voucher games, electricity bills, digital products and the internet.

To help facilitate transactions, LinkAja has formed partnerships with 20 eCommerce companies, including Bukalapak and Tokopedia. It can also be used for taxis, buses and railway transportation.

In addition to all of these uses, LinkAja customers can get money from the 40,000 ATMs owned by state-controlled lenders, without the use of a debit card. LinkAja also will let users send remittance payments to workers in Singapore, with plans to expand that particular service to other regions. Eventual expansion plans include moving into services such as insurance.

LinkAja backers say that a unified payments system will “provide a better and more comprehensive e-money service for the public.” It will compete with Gojek’s Go-Pay, DANA and Ovo, which is backed by Grab.

Finarya CEO Danu Wicaksana told The Jakarta Post that the transportation sector in particular was very important for LinkAja.

“[For toll road transactions], we will produce QR code stickers that could be attached to cars, and devices installed at toll road gates could scan the stickers. Drivers do not need to stop to carry out transactions,” he said.