Emtek Group, Ant Financial in partnership through payment joint venture

• To begin with, the payment platform will be offered on BBM, operated by a subsidiary of Emtek
• The venture will offer its technology to e-commerce, OTT and O2O services, merchants and platforms

PT ELANG Mahkota Teknologi Tbk (Emtek), an Indonesian media and diversified digital company announced a strategic partnership with Ant Financial Services Group, a digital financial service provider and parent company of Alipay.

The two companies will set up a joint venture to launch a new mobile platform for payment and other financial services and increase accessibility of digital financial services in Indonesia.

Emtek’s vision is to provide a world-class payments solution across its digital platform and to online mobile businesses in Indonesia.

The joint venture will leverage on Ant Financial’s experience and know-how in mobile payment, digital financial innovations, risk control and cloud computing.

To begin with, the payment platform will be offered on BBM, Indonesia’s most-installed and most commonly used messenger application which is operated by a subsidiary of Emtek and has a user base of over 63 million monthly active users in the country.

As BBM grows and enriches service offerings on its messaging platform, a seamless, secure and scalable payments solution will become a key part to user experience.

Beyond serving BBM users, the joint venture will also offer its mobile payments technology to e-commerce, over-the-top (OTT) and online-to-offline (O2O) services, merchants and platforms in Indonesia to satisfy their increasing demand for tailored payment solutions.

Emtek Group operates two national free-to-air television networks, creates content for its television and pay television businesses, cinematic release and online distribution through its owned publishing platforms and other OTT providers.

Besides BBM, Emtek also operates a large suite of online publishers including Liputan6.com, Bola.com, Bintang.com, Vidio.com and a careers portal Karir.com.

The group also has significant investments in e-Commerce through online market place Bukalapak.com and travel portal Reservasi.com.

BBM has evolved from a pure messaging application (text and video) to a social eco-system unifying chat, social, commerce and services such as bill payments, top-up, vouchers/coupons, games, news, video, shopping and travel, which provides an immediate opportunity to offer payments services. The joint venture will also offer payment solutions to other e-commerce players in Indonesia.

Ant Financial provides digital financial services to over 450 million users in China and beyond. Through its flagship Alipay app, users can hail a taxi, book a hotel, buy movie tickets, pay utility bills, make appointments with doctors, purchase wealth management products and manage their finances.

Ant Financial is also working with local partners in India, Southeast Asia and South Korea to deliver digital payment and innovative financial services to local users.

“We are excited to be working with Ant Financial to bring world leading mobile payment solutions and technology to Indonesia. This agreement represents each organization’s strong and long term commitment to provide our users across our digital platforms, the wider Indonesian population and partners, efficient, secure and user friendly payments solutions.

“Ant Financial has proven know-how in delivering payment and other financial solutions to a large and growing mobile audience in China and enabling its partners globally, and we are looking forward to replicating and creating this success in Indonesia,” said Emtek CEO Alvin Sariaatmadja.

“We look forward to working with our partner Emtek to bring a seamless payment experience and innovative financial services to Indonesian users. This strategic partnership underlines our commitment to serve the unbanked and underbanked around the world and to improve their lives by bringing them inclusive financial services. We are achieving this by working with partners who share our vision,” said Ant Financial International president Douglas Feagin. 

 
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