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T Multipolar Technology (MLPT), an affiliate of the Lippo Group, is planning on entering the electronic money services this year through a US$5 million investment in their latest subsidiary.

Multipolar Technology vice president director, Wellianto Halim, said the company had established PT Artomoro Prima Internasional (API) earlier this year to provide products and services related to electronic money, or e-money.

'€œWe would like to provide a platform that allows various companies, including banks and retailers, to provide e-money services to their customers,'€ he said.

He added the company had allocated roughly $5 million over the next five years to set up Artomoro.

The company sourced the funds internally.

'€œIn the initial phase, we will spend $2 million and most of it would go to purchasing servers necessary for operation,'€ he said.

He added that Artomoro was expected to start operating by the end of the year, and aimed to provide e-money services to companies affiliated to the Lippo conglomerate, as well as outsiders.

'€œWe are currently in discussion with several companies and we have been conducting trial tests on our systems,'€ he said.

Multipolar Technology is a subsidiary of PT Multipolar (MLPL), the parent company for retailers such as PT Matahari Putra Prima (MPPA), the operator of Hypermart, and PT Matahari Department Store (LPPF).

'€œWe are also interested in working on the payment systems that would enable us to develop loyalty cards which could be utilized across the various companies in the group,'€ he said.

Wellianto further added that Multipolar Technology saw significant potential in the e-money service business as more companies chose to provide cash-less transaction methods.

'€œThe logistics of conducting trade in cash is costly and this is why companies, including Bank of Indonesia, have been looking to cash-less forms of transactions,'€ he noted.

Lenders such as BCA (BBCA) and Bank Mandiri (BMRI) have prepaid cards that people could utilize to pay at shops or toll road booths.

Besides Artomoro Prima Internasional, the company also runs subsidiary '€” PT Graha Teknologi Nusantara '€” which looks to tap into the future boom in demand for data center services.

Multipolar Technology president director, Harijono Suwarno, added that although the company bought a majority of their equipment from foreign vendors in US dollars, the company faced no pressure amid the weakening of the rupiah.

'€œUp to 90 percent of our operating expenses are in US dollars,'€ he said.

'€œHowever, sales to our customers are in US dollars as well. This has prevented us from suffering foreign exchange loss,'€ he noted.

In the first half of the year, Multipolar Technology saw revenues rise by 11 percent year-on-year to Rp 572.1 billion. The company booked a net profit increase of 42 percent annually to Rp 16.8 billion.

Harijono added that up to 70 percent of their revenues came from their system integration business.

'€œThis business has given us the biggest revenues although this is where market competition is the highest,'€ he said.

He added that the rising US dollar presented an opportunity to them as well.

'€œThe US dollar increase will push up the expenses of our clients, who already have to pay more since the minimum wage hike.

Thus, they will look to automation and updating their information technology systems which would enable them to work more efficiently,'€ he said.

Multipolar Technology finance director, Hanny Untar, added that the company could switch their US dollar sales prices to rupiah if the dollar continued to weaken.

'€œThis strategy will ease the burden of our customers, and prevent us from experiencing a decline in sales due to expense adjustments on our customers'€™ side,'€ she added.