South East Asia's First Open Transfer Platform Launched in Jakarta

9 major Indonesian banks in the process of enabling Open Transfer Platform

JAKARTA, Indonesia and NEW DELHI, Sept. 17, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Indepay, today announced the launch of its mobile-first transfer platform tara.app framework. tara.app is an interactive social commerce framework meant for D2C businesses, brands merchants, micro-merchants, warungs, and nearby retailers powered by the Indepay Transfer Platform. It is designed to bring new online orders and instant payments for Indonesian MSMEs through an open platform by providing instant technology enablement to fast-track merchants & brands digitisation process and ride on the accelerated growth. It allows them to enable their social commerce interface quickly, conveniently, and economically. The tara.app framework relies majorly on high-end technology revolving around open APIs with deep integration with major banks, financial institutions, and new-age technology partners. The idea of interactive social commerce backed by BEENEXT and T8 Capital Partners was conceptualised a year back, since then the company has connected all the nodes and built the robust technology to bring tara.app framework to reality. After Indonesia, tara.app will soon be launched in all other South East Asian countries and the Indian subcontinent. 

The Indonesian payment system is still in its early stage of evolution, approximately 80% of the bank accounts are still not fully digitised. 3 out of 5 transactions are from ATM/Debit Cards withdrawals or cash transactions, which is true even for transactions done for e-commerce and bill payments. The importance of platforms like Indepay has become more significant for MSME driven economies like Indonesia poised for a big digital transformation. Recent studies and research also show the wide mobile internet usage and change in the user behaviour towards social media commerce, suggesting the importance of growing interactive social commerce.

tara.app intrinsically maps the customer's mobile number with their bank account as their Unique Pay-ID for a faster and secure Account-to-Account Transfer experience. Pay-ID also empowers users to build their digital reputation and helps to maintain security and consent-based control over their financial data. It facilitate the consumers to get over the worries of maintaining multiple bank apps and user IDs with their Mobile Number being the Pay-ID for faster, convenient, and secure transfers.

Rajib Saha, CEO, Indepay, who holds a pristine experience in SEA payment space of more than a decade said, "Higher payment and transfer fee is the major bottleneck in the development of Indonesia's startup ecosystem. tara.app working alongside Indepay team in Jakarta is going to disrupt the market. The deep integration with Banks and Financial Institutions will unlock endless possibilities for Indonesia."

Teruhide Sato, Founder & CEO, BEENEXT said, "I see the Indonesian Economy to be positively influenced by the evolution of startups and they will have a massive impact in accelerating the GDP growth of the country. We have been investing in various fintech startups globally and observed that the presence of digitised bank account transfers further drives the growth of the digitized economy in every country. Thus, we have partnered with Indepay to build the much-awaited open transfer platform in Indonesia connecting Banks, Payment Gateways, Switching, and Settlement Operators to offer an ultra-low-cost seamless transfer experience."

"COVID-19 has pushed digital commerce into a hyper-acceleration mode globally. In Indonesia too brands, companies, and micro-merchants want to up their digital commerce game as quickly as possible," added Rajib Saha.

To empower the MSME segment in Indonesia, the tara.app has curated a blended model - embedding products with easy and economical payment solutions to drive consumer engagement. Allowing easy discoverability of their products online and supporting them with network and community participation. It is meant to bridge the gap between merchants and banks through digitisation, enabling interactive commerce through social channels with the tara.app framework.

As per the published data by the Bank of Indonesia, the country has 160 Mn registered bank accounts out of which only 3-4% are digitised. Indepay aims to digitise 100 Mn Indonesian customers and achieve 1Bn transactions per month in the next 3 years. It is also going to facilitate the consumers and merchants with enablement like instant credit and many more features.

Indepay open transfer platform endeavours to position itself as the most convenient & economical digital payment option with interactive social commerce to make faster transfers, payments, and receive orders. Unleashing the full financial potential using the platform opens endless opportunities for Startups, Fintechs, Brands, MSME Businesses, and micro-merchants leading to a truly cashless economy.

About Indepay

Indepay is an Open Transfer Platform designed to fuel the transformation of the digital payment landscape with real-time Account-to-Account transfers and is in the process of creating the most-needed revolution in SEA. It is one of the leading innovators in the Fintech space in South East Asia, empowering the community with the benefits of financial inclusion by bringing everyone to be part of the future-ready revolution of cash-free transactions. Indepay and tara.app are owned by Setara Networks Worldwide Pte. Ltd, Singapore.

About BEENEXT

BEENEXT is a venture capital firm managed by serial entrepreneurs focusing on assisting founders with its operational experience, network, trust, unique perspectives, and capital. This VC invests in early-stage tech start-ups that are focused on building new digital platforms driven by data networks. BEENEXT aims to establish a platform of founders, by the founders and for the founders across the globe, primarily in South East Asia, India and Japan. Since its establishment in 2015, it has invested in over 200 companies globally.