The increase was revealed on Thursday during a forum held on the first day of the three-day #jalan2jenius program in Yogyakarta, held to promote the features available on the Jenius app, which is promoted as a life finance solution to ease transactions while traveling.

“We currently have over 900,000 users, some 700,000 of which are active users with transactions recorded at 4 million a month,” BTPN’s digital banking value proposition and product head Irwan Sutjipto Tisnabudi told the forum Thursday.

First launched in 2016, Jenius is available on the iOS and Android operating systems. It offers various features including digital transfers, online payments, savings, $cashtag or bank accounts by name instead of numbers and e-wallets.

“Our newest feature is Flexi Cash, which offers a standby loan of up to Rp 8 million [US$550] with a competitive interest rate,” said Irwan, adding that for the time being the service will only be offered to selected Jenius users.

Irwan said the #jalan2jenius program was held ahead of the year-end holiday and asked Jenius users to share their experience in using the app while they were traveling abroad and domestically.

He said the program was held because a recent survey that BTPN conducted on 500 respondents comprising the “digitally savvy”, or those aged between 17 and 40 years old, revealed that 86 percent considered jalan jalan (traveling) important.

“They define jalan jalan as refreshing, enjoying life, increasing the working spirit, respecting oneself and improving insights,” Irwan said as he presented the results of the survey at the forum.

He said the survey also found that 70 percent of respondents used Jenius for traveling domestically, mostly because it allowed users to withdraw money at any ATM and was easy to access anywhere, anytime.

“Thirty percent use it for traveling abroad, mostly because it can be used instead of credit cards and because of its Visa contactless feature,” Irwan said.

Claradevi Handriatmaja of Yogyakarta said she had been a Jenius user since the app was launched in 2016. She said she found it handy because the features allowed her to manage her family’s finances better.

“The feature I like the most is $cashtag. It’s very smart. It’s like that I’m not conducting banking transactions while using it. It’s like I’m chatting on Twitter,” Devi said.

The lender’s move to optimize its digital platform was part of the company’s strategy to lower operating costs. The BTPN claimed its transformation in digital technology that began in 2015 has made the business more efficient.

To date, digital transformation and innovation has reduced operating costs by 16 percent, from Rp 3.03 trillion during the first nine months of 2017 to Rp 2.55 trillion during the same period in 2018.

Meanwhile, during the lender’s extraordinary general shareholders meeting on Oct. 5, shareholders approved of the merger plan between the BTPN and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation Indonesia (SMBCI), the local arm of Japanese lender SMBC.

The shareholders’ meeting also approved the change in the company’s commissioners and board of directors.

In the first nine months of this year, the BTPN channeled loans of Rp 67.8 trillion, a slight increase of 3 percent compared to the same period last year. Meanwhile, total funding rose 3 percent year-on-year to Rp 77.6 trillion.

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