In brief: Sea gets e-money license for Indonesia

Shopee, through its parent company Sea Group, has obtained permission from Bank Indonesia to administer electronic money. A license has been granted to [Sea subsidiary] AirPay, [which later] will be applied to Shopee Pay.

Source: DailySocial (in Indonesian)

Shopee Indonesia country manager Rezki Yanuar said, “We just got the green light from Bank Indonesia [the country’s central bank] related to Shopee Pay a few weeks ago.”

Shopee Pay, which is still in development, will allow users of the online marketplace to make direct payments. Currently, most payments on Shopee’s Indonesia site are made by bank transfer.

Bank Indonesia has suspended payments platforms operated by local ecommerce players Bukalapak and Tokopedia, as well as Singapore-based Shopee and ride-hailing firm Grab, since September 2017 due to regulatory issues. Users of the companies’ digital wallets have not been able to top them up.

Bukalapak has collaborated with payments startup Dana on a new e-wallet service named BukaDana, which officially launched today.