Atome cuts staff in Indonesia BNPL, P2P divisions

Atome Financial, a subsidiary of Singapore-headquartered Advance Intelligence Group, has laid off employees in its Indonesia operations of Atome and Kredit Pintar, its buy now, pay later (BNPL) and peer-to-peer lending divisions, respectively, Tech in Asia has learned.

The company has now undergone at least two rounds of layoffs, with the first hitting employees in Indonesia in late August. The most recent round of dismissals took place in the last week of September.

Photo credit: Atome

According to an affected employee, “efficiency” was the official reason given for the current staff cuts, which involved workers across departments. Axed staff members were given a one-month notice and were compensated for their remaining leave balances.

At Kredit Pintar, the retrenchments that took place at the end of August affected both junior and senior employees. An entire offline sales and partnerships team was let go, while departments such as marketing were trimmed, says a source familiar with the matter.

It’s unclear how many employees were involved and if the layoff exercises also affected staff from Atome’s markets outside of Indonesia. Tech in Asia reached out to Atome Financial to confirm the dismissals, but the company declined to comment.

The staff cuts come as the firm has nearly tripled its profits and doubled its revenues in its 2021 financial year – growth that was driven mostly by Kredit Pintar.

A LinkedIn search found that Atome employs just over 650 people, while Kredit Pintar has almost 290 staff members.

Halt in loan applications

According to one source we spoke with, the global recession was communicated as one of the reasons for the retrenchments.

Earlier this year, Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK), Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority, had also been looking into an internal problem on the Kredit Pintar platform.

In July, prospective borrowers complained that they could not apply for loans on Kredit Pintar after their credit limits were increased, local news outlet Katadata reported at the time.

On its Instagram account, Kredit Pintar explained that loan applications were temporarily halted as a result of a “system maintenance” to improve the loan application service on the P2P platform.

See also: BNPL struggles amid global recession – except in Southeast Asia

OJK confirmed that it was supervising the issue, which was related to Kredit Pintar’s IT system, including the firm’s credit scoring feature, local publication Kontan reported at the time. The regulator did not share how long that review would take.

BNPL under pressure