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UK lender bucking trend with focus on credit cards
Business talk: Standard Chartered Bank Indonesia CEO Shee Tse Koon speaks during a visit to The Jakarta Post’s office on Thursday, as managing director and financial markets head Prakash Subramanian KV and external communications and public affairs head Mita Sampaguita Lamiran listen
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Business talk: Standard Chartered Bank Indonesia CEO Shee Tse Koon speaks during a visit to The Jakarta Post’s office on Thursday, as managing director and financial markets head Prakash Subramanian KV and external communications and public affairs head Mita Sampaguita Lamiran listen. (JP/Wendra Ajisyatama)
Amid a spate of credit card account closures reported by major banks in the country, the Indonesian arm of UK-based lender Standard Chartered Bank is bucking the trend with big investments toward expanding its credit card business.
Many credit card holders have been closing their accounts since the Finance Ministry issued a regulation that will enable the tax office to start getting access to their data in March, according to the Indonesian Credit Card Association (AKKI)
Nonetheless, Standard Chartered Bank Indonesia is pouring money into resurrecting and developing its credit card business, with increasing demand seen from its customers.
“This year we have invested quite a fair amount in our credit cards and that’s one area in retail banking that we are actually starting to reinvest in. We are trying to play big in the online space for credit cards,” SCB Indonesia CEO Shee Tse Koon said during a visit to The Jakarta Post’s office on Thursday.
For example, the SCB has partnered with popular online ventures, taking advantage of the burgeoning e-commerce trend in Indonesia, by cooperating with ticket and hotel booking app Traveloka and online marketplace Blibli. The partnership offers discounts to credit card holders booking their tickets and hotels through Traveloka, as well as when shopping on blibli.com.
The bank has also tied up with lifestyle retail giant PT Mitra Adiperkasa’s (MAP) shopping website mapemall.com as an exclusive credit card partner. The shopping website offers up to 20,000 products from more than 100 international brands.
MAP is the retail group behind numerous notable retail brands in the food and beverage, lifestyle and sports sectors, including Starbucks, Marks & Spencer, Nike, Adidas, Lacoste, Mango, Hasbro and Samsonite, among others.
Aside from partnerships with online markets, he said, the lender has also stepped up its promotions and set up registration booths at Kota Kasablanka mall in South Jakarta.
Tse Koon said Indonesia was one of the bank’s largest and most strategic markets and that the bank had big aspirations for the country.
SCB Indonesia’s head of corporate affairs and brand and marketing, Troy Pantouw, said the bank’s credit card holders have thus far been unaffected by the recent Finance Ministry regulation that gives the ministry’s directorate general of taxation the right to peek into credit card holder information and transaction data in 23 lenders.
Standard Chartered is among the 23 lenders listed in the regulation, which was issued in an attempt to raise the country’s low individual taxpayer base.
The bank’s credit card clients have in fact increased since it stepped up efforts on the credit card front late last year, Troy said, without disclosing any figures.
AKKI general manager Steve Marta said many lenders have reported that more and more credit card holders have closed their accounts, while others have also requested to decrease their credit ceiling since the regulation was issued.
Indonesia’s top private lender Bank Central Asia has reportedly seen its number of credit card holders dropping three-fold since the regulation was issued, president director Jahja Setiaatmadja recently revealed.
Steve went on to say that despite the development, lenders in the association would fully comply and he said that credit card holders should not be concerned over the regulation.
“About 75 percent of credit card holders are just regular employees, so they shouldn’t worry. The government should inform residents more about the regulation to avoid a panic because many of them still don’t understand,” he added.
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