Batara Sianturi, CEO of Citi Indonesia, said the tie-up could bring financial inclusion to young investors that usually do not have access to the bond market. It is also the beginning of other possible future cooperation between both companies, he said.

"Currently, in conventional banks, people can only buy bonds with a big-ticket size. How about if these [investors with a] small ticket size being combined and gave their order to Citi? We can give them access to the market," Batara said in a press briefing on Thursday.

The cooperation allows Citi to provide some of its investment products to Bibit via business-to-business (B2B) relations. Then, the investment app will channel those products to retail investors in a business-to-consumer (B2C) relationship.

Recently, the Financial Services Authority (OJK) released the Indonesian Capital Market Roadmap with the goal of increasing the number of Single Investor Identification (SID) investors from 11.2 million people in June, to more than 20 million by 2027.

Citi's Batara said the cooperation between the two companies could support that mission.

Since April, Bibit has opened access to the government bond market through a feature called Bibit Plus.

The app's head of investment research Vivi Handoyo Lie said in the same press briefing that Citi was one of several companies it had partnered with to facilitate retail investors’ access to bond products.

However, currently the global investment bank is the provider of the majority of products on the platform, she added.

Aside from government bonds, users can also use Bibit Plus to buy stocks, where the app has a partnership with its sister company PT Stockbit Sekuritas Digital.

In the same event, Bibit CEO Sigit Kouwagam claimed that more than 50 percent of mutual fund transactions in Indonesia happened in his app.

He also explained that Citi Indonesia has become a custodian bank for investment managers behind mutual fund products provided by Bibit in its app.

"We are looking forward to having more strategic partnerships with Citi Indonesia in the upcoming feature," Sigit said in a statement.

Prior to Citi, other foreign banks have also tapped local start-ups to boost their growth.

Last year, Australian lender Standard Chartered partnered with publicly listed ecommerce firm Bukalapak, allowing the latter's users to open a bank account via a feature called BukaTabungan. The global bank also has a similar partnership with beauty company Sociolla, and channels loans through fintech companies, such as Kredit Pintar and Kredivo.

Meanwhile, Singapore-based lender DBS also disbursed credit facilities for local tech firms, including automotive platform Broom and aquaculture firm eFishery.

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