Indonesia’s Digital Bank Jago Taps Tech Data For User Profiles

Indonesian digital bank Jago is planning to create user profiles from technology data that will help it develop and market financial products according to customers’ lifestyles, Reuters reported.

“Their daily lifestyle can be information for us,” Jago CEO Kharim Indra Gupta Siregar said in an interview with Reuters, adding that the company is focused on becoming profitable this year and the transaction data from the region’s technology giants will be helpful.

Ride-hailing and payments platform Gojek has a 22 percent stake in Jago through its FinTech division Gopay, which is combining with Tokopedia to form GoTo. The merger is expected to be the biggest in Indonesia.

The CEO also told Reuters that the company is working to offer a solution this quarter that will give people the ability to open bank accounts from Gojek’s app. Later in the year, the company is hoping to extend loan applications via the app.

The bank will have to request access from users to crunch data from purchases relating to travel and food, as well as other transaction details, he told the news outlet. That information will give Jago the ability to assess users’ credit eligibility. The company also is in talks with Tokopedia regarding data collection.

“With Tokopedia coming into the picture, it creates another digital ecosystem that can be partnered up with Bank Jago, and clearly it will be foolish not to pursue,” he said, per Reuters.

Bank Jago started offering financial services in March via its app even before it officially launched banking products. Aside from Gojek, Jago also received funding from the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte.

The infiltration of FinTechs, digital banks, and payments firms has changed the landscape of traditional banking. In July, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a warning that the country should be cautious about letting technology firms branch out into financial services.

In an interview with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster, Kelly Switt, head of financial services at Red Hat, and Mick Fennell, head of payments at Temenos, said that banks have to become focused on strategy in order to maintain an edge in the digital-first landscape of financial services.