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Fintech startup Cashlez takes off on bourse debut
PT Cashlez Worldwide Indonesia, the country's first fintech payment startup to be publicly listed, proved a hit on its stock exchange debut on Monday.
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A general view shows Indonesia’s stock exchange in Jakarta on March 24, 2020. - Asian markets and crude prices surged while the dollar sank on March 24 after the Federal Reserve unveiled an unprecedented bond-buying programme to support the US economy. (AFP/Adek Berry)
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T Cashlez Worldwide Indonesia, the country's first fintech payment startup to be publicly listed, proved a hit on its stock exchange debut on Monday, with the company seeking funds for expansion.
The price of Cashlez’s shares, traded on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) under the code CASH, increased from Rp 350 (US$0.23), its initial public offering (IPO) price, to Rp 384 within four minutes after trading opened.
The company will use more than half the Rp 87.5 billion raised from its IPO, conducted on April 27, to acquire PT Softorb Technology Indonesia, an IT solutions company, as part of its expansion strategy. The remaining funds will be used as the company's working capital.
Cashlez president director Tee Teddy Setiawan said during the virtual ceremony that the company, which offers a payment gateway to merchants, would remain focused on developing innovative products.
“We have always focused on becoming a company that develops innovative, secure and easy-to-use products for our merchants,” he said on Monday.
For its expansion, Cashlez plans to increase the number of merchants using its platform to 10,000 from 7,000 currently, many of which are small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
“Cashlez is helping SMEs digitize amid the COVID-19 pandemic,” the company wrote in its press statement on Monday.
The company has also set a goal to achieve a threefold increase its gross transaction value (GTV) this year, from 2019’s Rp 3.81 billion. Last year’s figure was also nearly triple its GTV in 2018.
E-money transactions in the Indonesian retail market skyrocketed 173 percent year-on-year in January, according to a Bank Indonesia (BI) report.
The positive performance of the startup’s listing contrasted with the gloomy market, with the Jakarta Composite Index (JCI), the IDX’s main gauge, falling into negative territory, plunging 2.73 percent in the morning and remaining in the red thereafter.
The index had lost 24.94 percent of its value as of Thursday as a result of the market panic caused by COVID-19.
The company became the 27th company to be listed on the IDX this year and the ninth company to do so with a virtual officiating ceremony, after the Jakarta administration extended its large-scale social restrictions to limit the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
“As the first fintech payment startup to be listed on the IDX and an [alumni] of the IDX incubator, we really hope that PT Cashlez Worldwide Indonesia Tbk will become a reference for other startups that are not yet listed on the bourse [to enter the capital market],” IDX assessment director I Gede Nyoman Yetna said during the virtual ceremony
He added that he expected the company to grow and improve its performance following its entry to the bourse.
