Doku Projects Doku Wallet to be Indonesia's PayPal, Will Release Mobile Apps Soon

Earlier this month payment processing company Doku, in partnership with Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI), launched Doku Wallet, which aims to replace your physical wallet and make it easier for consumers to conduct online transactions. Despite having a bank as a partner, Doku Wallet is independently operated, without needing to have a BNI account.

Most Indonesians don't have credit cards and according to Doku's head of business development Dhenu Wiarsandi, the majority of online transactions in Indonesia are being done through manual transfers or cash on delivery instead of credit cards or direct on-site payment. Debnath Guharoy of Roy Morgan wrote for the Jakarta Post today saying, "Only two percent of Indonesians who have a bank account use internet banking. Only seven percent of smartphone users have ever shopped online".

As online commerce is one of the major drivers of Internet adoption and there are increasingly more Indonesians going online, Doku is looking to seize this opportunity early on. The company had been working with banks and merchants over the last few years to establish their payment processing systems. When establishing online commerce, trust is a major factor, so these companies have to ensure that they are ready for consumers to comfortably conduct transactions online when the time comes.

Doku Wallet can be topped up through SMS banking, credit card, or direct transfer from bank accounts and it can be used for personal fund transfer between Doku Wallet accounts as well as paying for online transactions. While currently it is limited to online transactions, it's possible that it may be used for payments at physical stores in the future, although currently Doku is focusing on online transactions, according to Wiarsandi. Wiarsandi also said that Doku is open minded about establishing a partnership with Apple and Google for their respective application stores. "It would certainly be something that we're interested in", he said.

While banking regulations limit digital fund repositories to storing no more than Rp 5 million (USD 510) per account without the institution having to apply for additional, more stringent, license, 86% of online transactions in Indonesia are less than Rp 5 million per transaction and 42% are Rp 500,000 or less, according to the DailySocial research conducted last year with Veritrans. Having a limit of ten times the common transaction value shouldn't be too much of a hindrance in a market in which e-commerce is still a nascent activity.

We spoke to Wiarsandi at Traceroute Party on Saturday about Doku Wallet. In the video, he explained what Doku Wallet is, how it works, and whether non-BNI customers have to pay a fee when conducting transactions using Doku Wallet (no they don't).

At the moment, Doku Wallet has yet to fully launch its mobile site but it should be ready by the end of April and it's also working on releasing native mobile applications on the popular smartphone platforms. In the meantime, those who have Doku Wallet can access and modify their accounts using desktop or laptop computers.