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BTPN’s Jenius to expand services to lending, investment
Private lender Bank Tabungan Pensiunan Nasional (BTPN) announced plans to expand services offered by Jenius — its digital mobile banking app — to include lending, investment and insurance
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rivate lender Bank Tabungan Pensiunan Nasional (BTPN) announced plans to expand services offered by Jenius — its digital mobile banking app — to include lending, investment and insurance.
The additional services, expected to be rolled out sometime next year, are part of Jenius’ road map following its second-year anniversary on Aug. 11.
“We want Jenius to encompass more aspects of people’s financial lives. Plans for the additional services have been brewing for some time, but we wanted to announce them on this momentous occasion,” said BTPN digital banking head Peterjan van Nieuwenhuizen during the anniversary celebration in South Jakarta recently.
Earlier this month, BTPN and PT Bank Sumitomo Mitsui Indonesia (SMBCI) published and submitted documents to the Financial Services Authority (OJK) to pave the way for a merger between the two lenders.
In an official statement, BTPN and SMBCI — both subsidiaries of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) — stated that the documents included the bank’s name after the merger, its vision and mission, business strategies and the composition of its board of directors and commissioners.
SMBC is the controlling shareholder of BTPN and SMBCI with share ownerships of 40 and 98.48 percent, respectively.
Although the merger will form a more cohesive banking ecosystem within BTPN, it will have no direct impact on Jenius digital banking services, according to Van Nieuwenhuizen.
“Jenius services that have been in the pipeline, such as lending, investment and insurance, are not products of the merger,” he told The Jakarta Post.
However, like any other service offered by BTPN and SMBCI, Jenius will still benefit from a more robust banking network that resulted from the recent merger, Van Nieuwenhuizen added. Through the introduction of its additional services, Jenius aims to increase its user base in the coming months. Since its first launch on Aug. 11, 2016 in Jakarta, followed by Bandung and Surabaya, Jenius has noted over 700,000 customers that have joined as active users as at June of this year.
Over 50 percent of its active user base is in the millennial demographic since the digital mobile banking service was touted as a more youth-friendly approach to financial management, Van Nieuwenhuizen said.
“We are also looking to cater to the older demographic because we want Jenius to be an inclusive digital banking platform that could prove to be useful to everyone,” he told the Post, adding that BTPN expects the user base to double, triple or even quadruple in the next several months.
In addition to its new services, Jenius will also play a more active role in the improvement of financial literacy among millennials through workshops and panel discussions. The financial literacy index in Indonesia stood at 29.66 percent in 2016, according to data from the second National Survey on Financial Literacy and Inclusion (SNLIK) conducted by the OJK.
“We will intensify programs related to financial literacy since it’s the core issue that the Jenius platform hopes to tackle,” Van Nieuwenhuizen said.
He added that financial literacy workshops have been and will continue to be held once a week at Jenius Co.Create — community venues launched by the digital banking service in December 2017 at Pondok Indah Mall, South Jakarta, and Kelapa Gading Mall, North Jakarta.
Prior to the launch of Co.Create, Jenius presented a social experiment called Balonku in May 2017 that aimed to
increase awareness of financial priority among its millennial participants.
Young entrepreneur and long-time Jenius customer Aryo Ariotedjo — a founding partner at technology startup and investment firm GRUPARA Ventures and CEO at coworking space Freeware Spaces — responded positively to Jenius’ planned future expansion of services.
“I have frequently used various websites for online transactions, as well as Google and Facebook Ads. New Jenius services like lending and investment will definitely be indispensable for millennial entrepreneurs like me,” he said. (rfa)
