Standard Chartered launches Banking as a Service solution in Indonesia
Standard Chartered has launched nexus, its Banking as a Service (BaaS) product to help ecommerce, social media and ride hailing companies tap the banking space.
The bank says “Indonesia has the highest e-commerce adoption rate in the world” at 88%
The white-label solution, which was incubated at SC Ventures, will initially offer loan, credit card and savings account solutions which the bank will co-create with its customers.
“It started from a business plan mooted by an employee, who now leads the venture with a team of over 100 developers, engineers, and business development professionals across three markets,” the bank says in a statement.
As part of the launch, the bank has signed its first nexus partner, a “major ecommerce player” in Indonesia which Standard Chartered is yet to name as the deal is still subject to regulatory approvals.
The bank expects to co-create and launch products powered by nexus with the new partner in 2021.
Standard Chartered’s reason for picking an Indonesian partner is down to ecommerce penetration in the country.
The bank says that Indonesia has “the highest e-commerce adoption rate in the world” at 88%, citing figures from digital report by We Are Social in January.
Read more: Standard Chartered joins Cobalt post-trade network
The country has a population of around 265 million, but 180 million inhabitants are said to not have a bank account, offering a very valuable end customer pool for the bank to tap.
The bank’s Indonesian CEO Andrew Chia says nexus will now allow Standard Chartered to acquire and serve both affluent and mass market segments starting in Indonesia.
Eventually, the bank will roll out nexus into other Asian, African and Middle Eastern markets.
“nexus is potentially transformational for the bank and our customers,” says Standard Chartered’s group chief executive Bill Winters.
“We will actively partner with leading consumer platforms in our markets to enable convenient access to financial services to millions of new, tech-savvy customers.
“We are starting with Indonesia, as part of our strategy to grow digitally and expand our business in this important, fast growing market.”
This week Standard Chartered also announced the brand launch of its new digital bank in Hong Kong Mox, another example of the bank trying to diversify its user base by tapping both the affluent and underbanked.
Read next: Standard Chartered unveils new Hong Kong challenger bank Mox
