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ending Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) is tapping into the potential of more Indonesians traveling around Southeast Asia with a recent partnership with the region’s largest budget carrier, AirAsia.

Passengers of Indonesia AirAsia will be able to pay for their flights using the many payment options provided by BRI, from physical branch offices to ATM machines, as well as mobile and internet banking. AirAsia’s website will also have its own BRI channel for payment.

Indonesia AirAsia CEO Sunu Widyatmoko expects the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) to further increase passengers from smaller cities traveling abroad for employment and business. The AEC, which recently came into being although implementation is ongoing, will allow for freer movement of people, goods and services in the near future.

“We fully support the implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community and we see a large potential for transportation in the future with the free movement of people,” he said after signing a cooperation agreement with BRI in Jakarta on Friday.

Indonesia AirAsia carries about 6 million passengers each year, 70 percent of whom travel to international destinations and 30 percent to domestic ones. Sunu said many of the carrier’s passengers were Indonesian migrant workers who come from villages and travel to neighboring countries such as Malaysia and Singapore.

“Let me take an example. In East Java, our passengers come from Tuban, Lamongan and Blitar, not from big cities. BRI is connected even in these smaller areas,” he said.

Sunu predicted cashless transactions will dominate payment trends in the future and customers tend to prefer debit transactions, BRI’s strongest suit, over credit. Currently, payments to Indonesia AirAsia are made 30 percent by debit card, 30 percent by credit card and the remaining in cash.

BRI is known for its micro loans and wide network and customer base throughout the regions across the archipelago, be it in cities and small villages.

The lender has 10,612 conventional connections across the country in addition to its e-channel, which consists of electronic data capture machines, ATM machines and cash deposit machines.

“AirAsia is strong in the region and we see much potential in this cooperation,” BRI director Sis Apik Wijayanto said during the partnership signing event.

BRI can also provide easier access to the whole AirAsia Group for its 56 million customers, Sis said. A communications satellite, which would be launched later this year, is expected to further widen its network coverage, not only in Indonesia but also across other countries.

BRI, the most profitable bank in Indonesia with about 22,000 ATM machines across the country, spent US$200 million to develop the satellite in cooperation with San Francisco-based Space Systems Loral.

The satellite would serve the bank for 17 years, meaning that Bank BRI would be spending $11.8 million a year for the network, a lower figure than if the bank rented a satellite for $37.2 million annually.