Fintech is Susceptible to Money Laundering: Darmin Nasution

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Coordinating Minister of Economic Affairs Darmin Nasution reminded the government and authorities to anticipate various challenges that will likely emerge from the development of financial technology or fintech in the country. However, he said innovation rooms must still be opened in line with the advancement.

One of the challenges is the technology possibly be used for money laundering practice. “The development of financial tech is susceptible to money laundering,” said Darmin in Dhanapala Building, Finance Ministry, Jakarta, Wednesday, September 4.

Also, regulators and authorities should be aware of the winner-takes-all phenomenon, which means a leading industry player takes all opportunities in the market, while the other players collapse. The phenomenon has reportedly occurred in the industry of online-based business or e-commerce.

Other than the two threats, the risk of users’ private data misuse remains. Hence, regulators must prepare mitigation measures to prevent such cases as those from happening in the future.

“Therefore, to support its development in Indonesia, the government and authorities must create a balance between risk mitigation and the opening of innovation room beside the need of understanding the ecosystem landscape and industry dynamics,” he said.

Given those challenges, Darmin went on, next moves taken by regulators are necessary to be studied considering the penetration of digital finance is inevitable. “This is the future of the world, not only Indonesia,” he remarked.

Looking back to a few years ago, several parties still talked about the disruption, so Indonesia must follow the growing digital trend. Darmin also considered fintech as one of the new jobs in the future. “The world is developing exponentially in the digital era.”

CAESAR AKBAR