Go-Jek offers cashless payments to Indonesia’s mom-and-pop stores

Using Go-Pay at a Warung Pintar stall / Photo credit: Warung Pintar

An Indonesian startup that is digitizing the country’s “mom-and-pop stores” is now offering cashless payments through a new partnership with Go-Jek’s payments arm Go-Pay.

Warung Pintar makes prefabricated kiosks with a variety of built-in tech solutions aimed at Indonesia’s warung proprietors.

A warung is a small, typically family-owned business which can be a convenience store, cafe, roadside kiosk – or all of the above.

Warung Pintar, which means “smart kiosk” in Indonesian, was established in November last year as an internal incubation project of East Ventures. It was the Jakarta-based VC firm’s second internally incubated startup after its co-working space provider Cocowork, previously known as EV Hive.

In February, Warung Pintar banked US$4 million in seed funding from investors such as East Ventures, Digital Garage, Insignia Ventures Partners, SMDV, and Triputra Group.

The startup claims that, as of this month, it has over 300 “smart kiosks” in operation across the Greater Jakarta region, managed by about 500 micro-entrepreneurs.

From today, all of those outlets will begin accepting QR code-based cashless payments via the Go-Pay mobile wallet.

Capturing a wider market

Warung Pintar stalls are now accepting QR code-based cashless payments via the Go-Pay app / Photo credit: Warung Pintar

Warung Pintar’s presence in the gargantuan Indonesian market may be relatively small, but becoming the project’s first cashless payments partner nevertheless presents a potentially valuable opportunity for Go-Jek.

The hope is that the partnership can demonstrate the benefits of mobile payments to more warung owners around the country.

See: Go-Jek buys three fintech firms to conquer Indonesia payments

Warung Pintar’s own research found that 72 percent of warung customers want to see cashless payments options available at their local stall.