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Digibank ‘marathon’ has only just begun, Superbank says
Tigor Siahaan, president director of Superbank, shares his views on Indonesia’s digital banking landscape, the firm’s upcoming feature rollouts and his experience building a new bank.
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Ready to run: Superbank president director Tigor Siahaan poses with the Superbank logo in this undated photo. (Superbank/-)
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uperbank reached the 1 million users milestone in August, just under two months after the official debut of its mobile app. The newcomer backed by industry giants Grab, Emtek Group, Singtel and Kakao Bank says it hit that figure sooner than expected amid fierce competition with more established digital banks.
A key contributor to Superbank’s user acquisition is its integration with payments in the Grab app, which alone accounts for around 60 percent of the bank’s total user base.
In an interview with The Jakarta Post’s Aditya Hadi, Superbank president director Tigor Siahaan shared his views on the digital banking landscape in Indonesia, the firm’s upcoming feature rollouts and his experience building a new bank.
Question: Many digital banks launched their apps years before Superbank and have already passed 10 million users. Do you believe in the first-mover advantage in digital banking?
Answer: If you are looking at the big picture of Indonesia’s banking industry, third-party funds (DPK) total over Rp 8 quadrillion (US$512.89 billion), yet less than 1 percent of that is in digital banks. With digitalization, we believe that figure could grow to 3 percent, 5 percent or even 15 percent.
Yes, we may have entered the market late, but the race is far from over. If we imagine the journey as a 42.2-kilometer marathon, we have only seen the first 100 meters. So, it is fine if we started a little late, but my hope is that we continue to innovate and release more products, so our market share will grow over time.
