Debit Card Transactions Drop due to Rampant Digital Payment

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The growth of debit card transactions in August 2019 reportedly declined. This was allegedly due to the trend of digital payment services, such as GoPay, OVO, and Dana.

State lender Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) EVP Retail Payment, Arif Wicaksono, admitted that the transition from debit card to server-based electronic money owned by financial technology (fintech) firms is one of the major causes of the drop.

Fraud practices, which led to the restriction of the debit card transaction, were also affected by the transaction volume.

“Both factors are the major causes, small ticket transaction clearly shifts to fintech transaction and e-money belong to the bank itself,” said Arif to Bisnis, Thursday, October 3.

Referred to Bank Indonesia data, the debit card transaction in August saw a 3.95 percent year on year (YoY) grew to 566.4 million transactions, while in the same period last year, the growth was recorded at 10.61 percent.

The YoY growth of the transaction value of the debit cards also declined. In August 2019, it grew 4.14 percent at Rp619.44 trillion, slipped from last year’s that doubled to 9.13 percent or at Rp594.82 trillion.

Meanwhile, the distribution of debit cards saw an 8.6 percent year on year growth. Before digital payment becoming a trend recently, the number was recorded at 161.52 million cards in August 2018. The growth was slightly increased compared to August this year at 175.4 million cards.

BISNIS