Xendit Introduces BPR Zen, Venturing into the Banking Industry

The business expansion of fintech unicorn, Xendit, has gone beyond the payment gateway by venturing into banking and establishing PT Bank Perkreditan Rakyat Xen. From DailySocial.id's observation, BPR Xen has actively recruiting on various job portals.

The information is quite limited, including Xendit's channel for entry, whether through BPR acquisition or from scratch. BPR Xen is located in Depok, West Java. Our team tried to reach out, however, Xendit still preparing for answers by the time this news published.

BPR Xen by Xendit enlivens the digital crowd leveraging BPR and BPRS vehicles in the banking industry. There are UpBanx (Fazz Financial Group), Bank Hijra (ALAMI Group), and Komunal with the DepositoBPR product.

Compared to other commercial banks, BPR's activities are practically limited as they can only channel credit (no credit cards allowed and the it is limited to billions of Rupiah), savings, and time deposits. Also, the user base is more defined, at the provincial level.

Thus, this segment requires digitization to compete in the industry, along with ecosystem support. Xendit as a payment gateway has the ability to handle the transaction flow of money from various sources and also reconciliation.

Credit bank digitization

Komunal, through its DepositoBPR, grasps a perspective from the limited BPR users as it has not been digitized, therefore, its products have limited exposure and difficult access for urban depositors. DepositoBPR bridges BPR partners who are looking for customers to make deposit with depositors who want to multiple their funds or invest through BPR Deposits.

Komunal's Co-Founder, Hendry Lieviant said that it is an irony, during this pandemic, when commercial banks have high liquidity with low interest offers. Meanwhile, BPRs have difficulty accepting deposits simply because 95% of Indonesia's depositors live in urban areas.

In the development of DepositoBPR, one of the main challenges is standardizing and optimizing BPR processes which are currently still fragmented,. It requires improvements in terms of depositor experience. For example, changing live signature to digital, e-KYC through video calls, and most importantly changing physical bills into e-bill.

The thing is, in providing this solution, Komunal cooperates with the digital ecosystem. Xendit is one of its partners to facilitate the transaction flow.

In terms of industry, OJK has encouraged BPRs to collaborate with various institutions, for example facilitation collaboration between BPRs and fintech startups. OJK has granted the request for BPR and fintech lending for collaboration through two schemes, channeling and referral. It is said in the Guidebook for BPR and Fintech Lending Cooperation which was published in March 2021.

Furthermore, by initiating the development of BPR e-Cash in collaboration with Finnet Indonesia. BPR e-Cash is a kind of mobile-based electronic money that can later be used for various transactions such as QR payments, top up, money transfers, and others.

–Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian