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Jofie Yordan · · 3 min read

Grab’s Superbank push sidelines Ovo

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Hi readers,

As a consumer, I benefit from the price wars waged by platforms. This results in huge discounts, and such promos entice me to shop even when I didn’t plan to buy anything.

This was the case when Superbank was launched in the Grab Indonesia app – it offered a 75% discount for payments made using the digital bank.

I’m not trying to hype up Superbank – that was the actual discount. I imagine many other consumers were attracted by this as well: Superbank has grown rapidly, reaching 1 million users just two months after it was rolled out. Additionally, 62% of them have linked their accounts to the Grab app.

This makes me wonder about the future of Grab Indonesia’s e-wallet arm, Ovo. With Superbank offering such aggressive discounts, will users continue to stick with Ovo?

People might prefer to use just one finance platform rather than juggling multiple apps, leading them to choose either Superbank or Ovo.

However, considering the roles these platforms play, more people might opt to keep both. For instance, they could use Superbank for saving and storing money while using Ovo for payments.

The question now is whether Grab will continue offering hefty discounts for payments via Superbank. If they do, it’s possible that Ovo might gradually fade away.

That said, it seems unlikely that Grab would abandon Ovo altogether, given its wide ecosystem and strong position in Indonesia’s e-wallet market.

Jofie Yordan, journalist at Tech in Asia


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TIA Writer

Jofie Yordan

Based in Jakarta. A correspondent at Tech in Asia who covers startups and VC, with a primary focus on the ecommerce sector in Southeast Asia.