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Bank BJB proposes to take over Whoosh' transaction processing from Chinese bank
However, the region-owned lender stated that the process would not be easy as KCIC's money is pooled and fully controlled by a Chinese bank.
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The Jakarta-Bandung high-speed train named 'Whoosh' is seen during the inauguration at Halim Station in Jakarta on Oct. 2, 2023. (AFP/Bay Ismoyo)
R
egion-owned Bank BJB has expressed the intention of acquiring the right to sell tickets for Whoosh, the Jakarta-Bandung high speed rail (HSR) service.
Bank BJB president director Yuddy Renaldi said on Thursday that the company had approached PT Kereta Cepat Indonesia China (KCIC), the Sino-Indonesian consortium operating the train service.
"We want to be the transaction bank [for KCIC]. We have made [similar] partnerships with other state-owned enterprises [SOEs], such as Bulog, RNI and Telkomsel," Bank BJB's president director Yuddy Renaldi said on Thursday, as quoted from detik.com.
However, Yuddy said the process was not easy, as money from ticket sales would be pooled and fully controlled by a Chinese bank, adding that the operator’s finance director is also Chinese.
For now, BJB could only help facilitate payments for customers to purchase the tickets like other banks, Yuddy said.
Yuddy explained that KCIC had responded to the bank's request by opening an opportunity. However, he expects the process to be quite long and does not guarantee it will be successful in the end.
KCIC said in a statement on Saturday that most of the transactions were in fact processed in Indonesia and that it had worked with domestic banks and Chinese banks that had set up operations in Indonesia.
