“These Rp 20,000 bills are important for me to pay for motorbike taxi services and give an allowance to my children,” she said. “I actually have an OVO [e-wallet platform] account, but sometimes I pay in cash.”

Bank DKI, which operates 1,085 ATMs with various bill denominations across Greater Jakarta, is maintaining its cash machines that dispense Rp 20,000 bills to cater to customers who have a particular need for smaller banknotes, such as students.

Bank DKI joins state-owned lenders Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) and Bank Mandiri in keeping alive the Rp 20,000-bill dispensing machines.

Nonetheless, cash transactions are declining as people shift to digital payments through e-wallet platforms such as Gopay, owned by online ride-hailing firm Gojek, and OVO, owned by information technology firm PT Visionet Internasional. According to a 2019 financial technology report by business and technology news portal Dailysocial.id, 82.7 percent of the total 1,500 people surveyed nationwide were aware of e-wallet platforms. Moreover, 83.3 percent of the respondents used Gopay and 81.4 percent used OVO.

But even long before the decline of cash transactions, such small-bill ATMs were difficult to find across Jakarta.

Bank DKI operates 14 ATMs distributing Rp 20,000 bills across Greater Jakarta: four machines at the Juanda branch office, three at City Hall, one on Jl. Suryopranoto in Central Jakarta, two on Jl. Hr. Rasuna Said in South Jakarta and four at the University of Pamulang in South Tangerang, Banten.

Bank DKI corporate secretary Herry Djufraini said that the bank maintained the cash machines to accommodate the needs of customers such as students.

“Therefore, we put some of the ATMs in designated locations such as the University of Pamulang,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.

Bank BNI’s ATMs dispensing Rp 20,000 bills are installed nationwide at 104 locations, 12 of which are in Greater Jakarta.

“We installed most of the ATMs in locations with a large need for Rp 20,000 bills, such as on campuses, at shopping centers and in some of the bank’s branch offices,” BNI corporate secretary Melly Melliana told The Jakarta Post via text message on Wednesday.

Bank Mandiri has 23 machines distributing Rp 20,000 notes across the country, six of which are located in Jakarta, according to the bank’s senior vice president of transaction banking retail sales, Thomas Wahyudi. The cash machines are installed at the bank’s branch offices and in university neighborhoods.

“The locations of the ATMs were chosen based on the transaction history there and operational considerations,” he told the Post. “However, right now Bank Mandiri is phasing out the number of the ATMs [dispensing Rp 20,000 bills] to support Bank Indonesia’s program to reduce cash transactions.”

Bank DKI is encouraging its customers to make purchases via its mobile app, JakOne Mobile, to promote cashless transactions. The app allows customers to pay taxes, airline and train fares and utility bills.

Mondang Simbolon, a 48-year-old civil servant who has subscribed to Bank DKI’s services for five years, said she sometimes paid via e-wallet for online motorbike taxi services. If her e-wallet balance was not enough, she would pay with cash.

“For daily needs such as paying for lunch and motorbike taxi services, I withdraw the Rp 20,000 bills more often than the higher denominations,” said Mondang. “It will be very nice if the bank retains this cash machine.”

Not all customers enjoy withdrawing Rp 20,000 bills. Andria Yusuf, a 34-year-old civil servant, said he regularly used cash machines dispensing Rp 50,000 bills despite having ATMs distributing lower denominations installed at his office in Jakarta. He said it was because his daily purchases, such as cigarettes, cost more than Rp 20,000.(dfr)

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