T

he government is finalizing a long-awaited e-commerce road map that will provide guidelines on digital business, from start-up funding and consumer protection to cyber security.

Communication and Information Minister Rudiantara said on Wednesday that all related ministries and agencies had agreed to the draft and that it would be issued this month.

'€œIt has been agreed that the e-commerce road map will cover items relating to seven main issues,'€ Rudiantara said after a closed-door meeting at the Office of the Coordinating Economic Minister.

The meeting was attended by, among others, Rudiantara himself, Creative Economy Agency head Triawan Munaf and Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution.

The highlights of the e-commerce road map include start-up funding, logistics, consumer protection, communications infrastructure, tax revision, human resource development and cyber security.

From those seven major issues, the government has set up a total of 30 initiatives that will constantly be reviewed during implementation.

Under the consumer protection clause, for example, the government plans to develop a national payment gateway (NPG) to improve e-commerce payment services and enable the government to easily capture all online transactions to provide data to facilitate policy-making.

Bank Indonesia Deputy Governor Ronald Waas said earlier the payment gateway would focus on building inter-operability between local interbank network providers, also known as switching companies, to support the increase in electronic payments.

 The implementation of the scheme, which has been postponed since 2012, will pave the way for the establishment of a central institution overseeing interconnectivity of all electronic payments through various tools, including debit and credit cards, as well as e-money.

There are currently four switching companies that provide a network for e-banking payments in the country, namely Artajasa Pembayaran Elektronis (ATM Bersama), Rintis Sejahtera (ATM Prima), Daya Network Lestari (ATM ALTO) and Sigma Cipta Caraka (ATM Link), which is a second-tier subsidiary of state-owned telecommunications giant Telkom.

With the central bank'€™s support, all the switching companies have agreed to enable inter-operability with each other in 2013 with certain fees charged to customers of different banks. However, the implementation is still limited.

In addition, Rudiantara said the draft needed the endorsement of President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo, adding that the road map would be issued either in the form of a presidential regulation or other types of governmental regulation.

The country aims to see annual e-commerce transactions worth US$130 billion by 2020.

The drafting of the e-commerce road map began in December 2014, but has yet to receive an official regulation to bring it to life.

The plan is eagerly awaited by e-commerce players looking for certainty in doing business in a country where around one-third of the 250 million population has access to the internet.

Other than working on the road map, the government is also set to soon issue a revision to its '€œnegative investment list'€ (DNI), under which large-scale e-commerce investment will be opened up to foreign investors.