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Queen Maxima urges rural financial inclusion

Inclusive: President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo receives Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, who is the United Nations secretary-general’s special advocate (UNSGSA) for financial inclusion, at Merdeka Palace in Jakarta on Tuesday

Agnes Anya and Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Wed, February 14, 2018

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Queen Maxima urges rural financial inclusion

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span class="inline inline-center">Inclusive: President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo receives Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, who is the United Nations secretary-general’s special advocate (UNSGSA) for financial inclusion, at Merdeka Palace in Jakarta on Tuesday. The President and the queen talked about how to accelerate Indonesia’s financial inclusion.(JP/Seto Wardhana)

In a surprising move, Queen Maxima Zorreguite Cerrutia of the Netherlands stopped on Tuesday at a small meatball stall in Sabang, Central Jakarta, where she met with informal economy workers as part of her mission to promote financial inclusion.

Having arrived in Indonesia on Sunday, the United Nations secretary-general’s special advocate for inclusive finance for development wrapped up her work two days later by talking with ojek (motorcycle taxi) drivers, a bakso (meatball) vendor and a housewife managing a financial social gathering. All of them, coming from low-income families, are partners in Go-Jek, a leading Indonesian startup offering various online-based services: from people transport and food delivery to hairdressing.

During a half-hour discussion at the stall, Maxima asked several questions on how they had taken advantage of Go-Jek’s payment service, Go-Pay, to obtain easy, safe and helpful financial products and services.

Maxima, on her second visit to Indonesia in the past two years in her UN capacity, said the talk was part of her agenda seeing Indonesia’s attempts to reach low-income people not only in urban regions but also in rural areas for the financial inclusion program.

“We are going to be focusing a lot more on rural areas and financing,” said Maxima, adding that she defined financial inclusion as people’s “ability to make payments […] without having to travel for days and days and joining two-hour queues.”

Indonesia, she said, must be able to help people in rural areas acquire such financing abilities.

“We really need to get solutions for farmers to answer all their needs so that we can reduce their risk,” said Maxima, who also met President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and several ministers. She said that with the ministers she discussed distribution networks that provide people in rural areas access to “make payments safely in their homes with mobile phones”.

The Argentine-born royal said Indonesia had the potential to develop financial inclusion since its technology development and economic growth was going in a positive direction. Earlier in the morning, Maxima met Jokowi at Merdeka Palace, where they had a one-hour talk on the veranda about inclusive financing.

Speaking after the meeting, Maxima said she and Jokowi discussed ways to simplify financial systems, accelerate current progress and the use of technology to improve services for all people in Indonesia. While acknowledging Indonesia’s progress, Maxima pointed out that there were still a lot of rural people who did not have access to bank accounts or financial services.

“We need to really [step up] efforts to address this issue and in this regard, technology would play a very important role because we really need to get to that last mile with a very affordable product,” she said. “I am looking forward to continue working with the government, but also with the private sector [...] and also the non-financial services.”

Jokowi said he agreed with Maxima, in that simplifying financial systems and permits were keys to financial inclusion.

“We want all citizens to be able to access banking and financial services in the most simple and effective ways,” Jokowi said.

Indonesia wants at least 75 percent of the population to have access to formal financial services by 2019. Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution said Indonesia has conducted and would step up efforts to promote financial inclusion, including through various non-cash social assistance programs distributed in form of cards connected to the banking system. They were, among others, the Family Hope Program, a non-cash assistance, micro credit program, a social security program and a scholarship program meant for millions of people, Darmin said.

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