Digital Money Bags

DANA, one of the country's largest e-wallet platforms, is looking to expand its customer base throughout the archipelago.

- Elisa Valenta

With a total estimated transaction value of $10 billion, Indonesia’s electronic payment sector overtook Thailand in 2019 to become the largest market in South East Asia according to the latest South East Asia Money Market Report from S&P Global Marketing Intelligence. With around 66% of the country’s population being unbanked, Indonesia has been a fertile opportunity for e-wallet providers and with the growth of e-commerce, either establishing their own e-payment platforms or linking with other providers of e-wallets has been an important part in the strategy for most digitally-based businesses. The growth in the eCommerce market, and by extension e-payment volumes, has only been accelerated by the pandemic as more people switch to online businesses for a myriad of daily needs. Non-banks have overtaken banks as the source of primary e-payments and the transaction value of e-money from digital wallets or stored value cards has overtaken those e-payments done by bank transfers and debit and credit cards, according to the above report.

Indonesia has over 45 licensed e-wallet platforms, with domestic players dominating. PT. Espay Debit Indonesia Koe, or DANA, is one of them. DANA, the country's third-largest e-money platform, after GoPay and OVO, has successfully attracted 80 million users to date, with 70% of them concentrated in Java.