LINE Indonesia managing director Dale Kim said the company plans to provide Indonesian users with the service in collaboration with Bank KEB Hana Indonesia, controlled by South Korea’s Hana Financial Group.

“We have fintech services to be launched with Hana bank next year. We will have digital banking services available on our platform,” he told The Jakarta Post on Friday at Senayan City shopping mall in Jakarta on the sidelines of LINE Creativate 2018.

LINE Corporation, through its subsidiary LINE Financial Asia, announced its plan last month to acquire a 20 percent stake in Bank KEB Hana Indonesia, as a step to expand digital banking services in Indonesia.

The acquisition has yet to be approved by the Financial Services Authority.

After the acquisition is complete, LINE Financial Asia will become the second largest shareholder in Bank KEB Hana Indonesia, adding digital banking services as part of LINE’s variety of services and new content that can be enjoyed by users in Indonesia.

The idea of expanding to digital banking services was backed by the fact that Indonesia is home to a whopping 260 million people, with a large proportion remaining unbanked.

At the same time, the number of smartphone users in Indonesia has reached more than 100 million people, making the country a potentially large market for digital banking services.

“Through collaborating with PT Bank KEB Hana Indonesia, we will launch easy-to-use and innovative banking services in Indonesia,” said LINE Financial Asia CEO, Joon Hwang, in an official statement recently.

Together, the two companies plan to create deposit or microcredit products, as well as remittance and payment services in Indonesia. They also aim at implementing and improving credit rating models through projects with local and international credit rating agencies, such as creating identity verification (e-KYC) that will be optimized for local regulations.

In Indonesia, LINE has added new services to encourage customers to keep using its app, in response to competition from messaging apps such as WhatsApp or other social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, which have large user bases.

Kim said LINE Indonesia has been trying to differentiate its services to attract younger
users. LINE’s biggest source of revenue comes from advertising and stickers.

“[In Indonesia], we still have additional challenges to monetize [our services] because users are reluctant to spend money on LINE. We are at the starting point and we hope to be bigger,” he said.

Aside from instant messaging, LINE also provides various services through its mobile app, such as gaming, a news aggregator, online shopping, job search, online comic portal and video streaming.

LINE Indonesia is said to have 90 million registered users in Indonesia. The company claims that the number of users remains stable from the previous year.

Aside from fintech services, LINE also organizes various activities to boost user engagement such as LINE Creativate 2018, an event for local creators to present their best works in various categories, such as LINE sticker, LINE Webtoon, LINE Chatbot, LINE shopping business competition and LINE Today video creations.

On Friday, LINE presented awards to the winners of the competitions, participated by thousands of creatives, which boasted the theme “Proud of Indonesia”.

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