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outh Korean conglomerate Lotte Group announced its plans to delve into the credit card market in Indonesia following a meeting with President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo during his state visit to the East Asian nation last month.

In a one-on-one meeting with President Jokowi on May 16 in Seoul, Lotte Group chairman Shin Dong-bin conveyed the company’s plans to advance its business and investment in Indonesia, including an idea to venture into the credit card market.

“They [Lotte’s management] have told us that they want to invest in cinema, theme parks and the credit card business in Indonesia,” Creative Economy Agency head Triawan Munaf said recently.

The company’s chain of hotels, amusement parks and duty-free shops generated more than 5.1 trillion won (US$4.38 billion) in revenue last year, Bloomberg reported.

Foreign Affairs Minister Retno LP Marsudi said the group was eager to invest further in Indonesia as it had seen potential.

With Lotte Mart having first opened its doors in Indonesia in 1993, the company, which employs 9,000 people in Indonesia, has become a major retail player in the country. It also operates Lotte Department Store with two duty-free stores, the Angel-in-us Coffee coffeehouse chain and Lotteria fast food chain.

In 2013, the group opened Lotte Shopping Avenue near the busy Mega Kuningan central business district in Jakarta. It is a large-scale shopping complex that hosts its affiliates, including Lotte Department Store, a duty-free store and Lotteria.

Despite having yet to hear Lotte’s plan, Indonesian Credit Card Association (AKKI) general manager Steve Marta said the South Korean group had actually engaged in a discussion with the association two years ago regarding its idea to enter the domestic credit card industry.

“However, we haven’t heard any news from Lotte since then. As far as I know, the company started a partnership with Bank Negara Indonesia’s [BNI] credit card business,” he said on Friday, referring to the state-owned lender.

Separately, BNI consumer banking director Anggoro Eko Cahyo said the bank had a partnership with Lotte Mart Indonesia through a co-branding credit card product called “BNI Lotte Mart Card”, which was launched in 2011.

Bank Indonesia, which also supervises and regulates the country’s payment system, is yet to receive a report from Lotte Group on its plan to enter the domestic credit card market, Deputy Governor Ronald Waas said.

“They are welcome, but we haven’t yet heard anything [from them],” he said.

As a potential new player in the credit card business in Indonesia, home to over 250 million people, Lotte still has an opportunity to penetrate the local market. There are currently only 16.9 million credit cards circulating in the country, Steve said.

However, he said new players were expected to start venturing in non-traditional types of credit card market as existing issuers were largely concentrated in Jakarta and other big cities with similar customer profiles.

“It would be better for new players to seek alternative customer profiling, such as micro and small and medium enterprise [MSME] segments. This will also help increase non-cash transactions in the country,” he said.

The country saw 23.6 million credit card transactions worth Rp 22.1 trillion booked by 23 issuers in April, Bank Indonesia data shows.

If its credit card operation in Indonesia is confirmed, Lotte will become the country’s second non-bank credit card issuer after AEON Credit Services, a consumer financing firm subsidiary of Japan’s conglomerate AEON Group.

Despite the country’s credit card market being dominated by banks, Steve said non-bank credit card issuers still had good prospects as they owned captive markets amid a new global trend in which various multinational companies, such as airlines, had started to issue their own payment cards.