Indonesian online lender in hot water as hundreds of investors allege fraud

Several people have alleged that Tanijoy, an Indonesian peer-to-peer (P2P) lending startup for agriculture projects, has defrauded them of their investments.

One stakeholder, Akbar Prasetyo, claimed on Twitter that at least 400 investors had been affected, with investments totaling about 4 billion rupiah (US$276,000).

Two men wearing Tanijoy shirts, looking at a handheld tablet / Photo credit: Tanijoy

Prasetyo, who is a member of the Tanijoy Lenders Association, said on Twitter that he invested 12.4 million rupiah (US$856) in a Tanijoy project in July 2020. Prasetyo said he had been promised an annual return of 14% due in March this year but that Tanijoy’s app stopped showing any updates on the project since December 30, 2020.

A number of other investors have voiced their complaints through the Google reviews page for Tanijoy and on the lender’s Instagram account. Some said that while the returns are technically available on the app, the money had not been disbursed into their bank accounts.

Tech in Asia has reached out to Tanijoy and its CEO, Muhammad Nanda Putra, for comment.

It is unclear who the company’s institutional investors are, though it won a social enterprise grant from DBS Foundation – the nonprofit arm of Singapore’s DBS Bank – in late 2019. Tanijoy also inked a partnership agreement with PT Berdikari, an Indonesian state-owned enterprise in the animal husbandry space.

Separately, Tongam L Tobing of Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK), Indonesia’s financial services authority, said that Tanijoy is not licensed as either a fintech lender or conventional microfinance institution in the country.

A group of men after harvesting / Photo credit: Tanijoy

In an interview with CNN Indonesia, Prasetyo said that Tanijoy and several investors went through a mediation process but had not reached a resolution so far, adding that the company has been difficult to contact.

Another investor, Annisa Dewi Febryandini, wrote in a blog post last year that Tanijoy had held a virtual meeting on September 4, 2020, where the company explained to affected financiers that it was facing financial difficulties and project management issues.

During the meeting, Tanijoy alleged that farmers had directly sold their harvest to other parties, instead of through Tanijoy, Febryandini wrote. She went on to write that the lender claimed that the farmers had used the sale proceeds for personal needs. According to Febryandini, Tanijoy also admitted that the company restricted its team from conducting field checks during the pandemic, making it difficult to communicate remotely with the farmers.

She also wrote that the company promised to return the money in the meeting but did not specify a definite period of time to do so.