Indonesia’s central bank seeks to boost epayments industry with updated regulations

(Updated on June 16th: We revised the daily transaction value of epayment services in Indonesia from IDR 8.7 billion (US$736,000) to IDR 7.7 billion ($652,000). We apologize for the inconvenience.)

Epayments are taking off in Indonesia as ecommerce grows in country. That has caused the Bank of Indonesia to revise its regulations governing the nation’s epayment services. The central bank recently reported that there are an average of 420,000 daily transactions with total value of IDR 7.7 billion (US$652,000) using epayment tools. There are currently 17 online payment companies in Indonesia.

Indotelko yesterday reported some of the important revisions inside the regulations. Epayment players are no longer allowed to strike exclusive partnerships. This means any company can cooperate with multiple epayment tools at the same time. Another revision deals with the minimum balance that customers need to keep inside an epayment service when withdrawing the money. That minimum balance has now been reduced to zero.

(Read: Indonesia’s emoney adoption has a bright future)

Epayment and emoney services in Indonesia are allowed to charge users extra for things such as card printing, administration, top-up fees, and fees when withdrawing money from banks. The new regulations encourage epayment companies to allow online top-up between competing services. That interoperability has been implemented by three firms: Telkomsel’s T-Cash, Indosat’s Dompetku, and XL Axiata’s XL Tunai.

The regulatory revision also clarifies some details for epayment players, such as definitions, legal permissions, and responsibilities. You can view the revision here (in Indonesian).

(Source: IndoTelko via DailySocial in Indonesian; photo from Flickr user Anis Eka)