Bank Indonesia Denies Reports on E-Wallet Rankings

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Bank Indonesia (BI) has rejected recent media reporting on ‘BI rank data’ release which suggests OVO market leadership in the national digital wallet (e-wallet) in Indonesia. The central bank denied recent media coverage, stating it never issued such a report.

“Bank Indonesia has never issued or published individual data," Executive Director of BI Communication Department, Onny Widjanarko, asserted this weekend, as quoted in a press release received by Tempo English today, September 26.

In most recent news coverage, OVO is identified to have been accounted for 18 percent of total digital payment transactional value in Indonesia in the first six months of 2019. 

The news which mentions e-wallet usage ratings in Indonesia by referring to BI data, said Onny, is inappropriate. "The information is false. Bank Indonesia has never released individual data," he repeated.

Recent news specified OVO leadership in electronic money and that the digital wallet built by the Lippo Group and owned by Softbank through Malaysian company Grab prevailed over LinkAja, Go-Pay, DANA, and others.

The data contradicts the facts raised by several establishments used to officially release electronic money usage ratings in Indonesia. 

IPrice group research in collaboration with trusted analysis company App Annie, for instance, announced e-wallet applications with the most users in Indonesia in mid-August 2019.

Comprehensively describing the top 10 most popular ranking from 2017 to 2019, the results revealed Go-Pay as an e-wallet application with the Most Active Users (MAU) in Indonesia and the position as a market leader has not dropped for the third consecutive years. 

OVO itself is ranked second based on the number of application downloads in the second quarter of 2019. DANA is ranked third and LinkAja trailing behind in fourth.

The iPrice research team also collected data on the types of services provided from 38 e-wallet and e-money applications available in Indonesia. ASEAN Nomura data stated that Go-Pay has 10 types of services, LinkAja has 9 variations of service types, Paytren has 8 service types, DANA and OVO both provide 7 service types. 

When contacted separately, OVO head of public relations Sinta Setyaningsih balked at responding to Tempo’s questions on Indonesia’s e-wallet ranking. She added presently OVO was focusing on bolstering the adoption level of digital transactions and accelerating financial inclusion.

She went on to explain there were still many things OVO needed to educate to the people in the country. “Particularly amid market conditions that keep on developing,” she said. 

TEMPO

 Correction: 

(*) This article was revised with additional contents on Friday, September 27, 2019.

(*) This article went through a second revision on Monday, October 7, 2019.