The lender aimed to cash in on Rp 1 trillion (US$69.59 million) in fee-based income from EDC transactions this year, an increase of 12 percent year-on-year (yoy), said Thomas Wahyudi, the bank’s senior vice president of transaction banking retail sales group, in Jakarta on Thursday.

The bank has collaborated with 220,000 merchants across Indonesia and it is now looking to add another 10,000 at year’s end so that more customers can use its EDC machines.

“We are looking to collaborate more with big merchants to jack up our transactions,” said Jasmin, SEVP consumer and transaction banking of Mandiri.

Fee-based income from the EDC machines comes from debit and credit card transactions.

As of May, the bank booked about Rp 400 billion to Rp 500 billion in fee-based income from EDC transactions.

It is now aiming to increase the number of EDC machines to 250,000 by the end of this year compared to the 220,000 at the moment.

The bank also operates around 17,500 ATMs.

In order to improve its customer service, Mandiri will build more infrastructure for its EDC.

Currently, its EDC machines are able to serve payment transactions using cards from other banks, which include National Payment Gateway (GPN), Visa, Mastercard and JCB.

Transactions using EDC machines generally increase during the Idul Fitri holiday, Christmas and New Year as well as other festive seasons.

On regular days, Mandiri implements several strategies to increase transactions.

“In times when there are no seasonal events, we create programs per merchant, such as discounts for customers who use Mandiri credit cards or redeem point promotions,” Jasmin said.

One of the strategies it employed was a lottery program that ran from last December to February this year. Debit and credit card customers of other banks were able to join the lottery if they shopped for goods at merchants partnering with Mandiri.

The lender claimed that the program ran quite effectively, while it looked to run a similar one in the future. Within three months of the program being implemented, transaction volumes at Mandiri’s EDC machines surged by 14 percent yoy, the bank’s executives said.

As it is committed to support the growth of non-cash transactions, Mandiri has urged customers to use e-money for toll fee payments and to purchase groceries in minimarkets and other places.

From July, it will allow customers to store e-money worth up to Rp 2 million.

Mandiri has distributed 14.3 million e-money cards to customers thus far, including co-branded ones. As of now, Rp 800 billion worth of funds are being stored in e-money.

The bank has posted around Rp 1.1 trillion to Rp 1.2 trillion in average monthly transactions using e-money.

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