This startup aims to empower Indonesian women as household CFOs

Jocelyn Pantastico, founder of LiveOlive.

According to a McKinsey Global Institute report, consumer spending on savings and investment products in Indonesia is set to reach US$565 billion by the year 2030, roughly a 465 percent increase from what it is today. Those figures are encouraging to Jocelyn Pantastico, founder of LiveOlive – a money management startup for Indonesian women.

LiveOlive claims to be Indonesia’s pioneer of the finance-for-females tech space. The site walks women through major life events such as marriage, new jobs, and having children, aiming to ensure that they make the right financial decisions at each stage.

The homepage includes advice posts on the basics of money management, an age-specific content section, home and auto loan calculators, and a money toolbox that features budget, retirement, and “unisave” widgets. LiveOlive’s rate comparison section zeroes in on savings and time deposit products, and also offers a built-in currency converter.

Pantastico says that Indonesia represents a US$100 billion market where less than 10 percent of locals have insurance and less than two percent of women have any form of investment at all.

“When buying a financial product, people go through a journey – search and research, consideration, short-listing and purchasing,” explains the Filipino-born entrepreneur. “LiveOlive is positioned at the earliest and widest stage of the funnel. […] We guide women through the process of assessing what they need and when they will need it.” According to Pantastico, LiveOlive aims to empower women as the CFOs of their households because, on average, women claim to control 70 percent of their families’ monthly expenditures.

See: KreditGoGo allows Indonesians to compare financial products

The family treasurer

Pantastico says she can remember acting as the official treasurer of her family as a child. She recalls making travel and restaurant decisions based on the family’s net budget. Later in life, Pantastico would spend almost 20 years working for companies like Nielsen and Danone to better understand and analyze consumer behavior for sales strategies. In March 2012, Pantastico established LiveOlive’s beta site.

“A few years ago, I woke up and realized, to my dismay, that my finances didn’t really reflect the almost two decades that I’ve worked. Cutting back on shopping didn’t really help […] I was too lazy and often intimidated to ask financial experts about terms and things I didn’t understand.”

Pantastico says that local ‘fintech’ aggregation sites – such as iMoney Indonesia and CekAja – are LiveOlive’s closest competitors, but also claims LiveOlive is unique with its female target audience. She says, “We focus on women and their life stages and issues. This is, I believe, our strongest differentiator.”

Pantastico says LiveOlive monetizes by providing leads to financial institutions for an undisclosed flat fee with the consent of the users. She adds that LiveOlive does not work on a commission basis in order to maintain the site’s neutrality when making product and policy recommendations.

“LiveOlive has a scaleable business model, which will allow us to reach US$1 million in revenue by 2016,” Pantastico says. But that will be a challenge as its startup rivals seem to have more traction, judging by their relative performance on Alexa’s web rankings.