Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison Collaborates with Maucash to Present Digital Loan Services

After the digital wallet era, telecommunication operators are now starting to explore money lending services. This time, PT Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison Tbk (IDX: ISAT) or IOH partnered with the Maucash platform to provide Bima Credit loans, specifically for Tri prepaid and postpaid customers.

Bima Credit is a collaborative loan product between Tri and Maucash that can only be accessed on the Bima+ application. A little information, Maucash is a cash loan and paylater platform which is also a subsidiary of PT Astra International Tbk with WeLab. Maucash has been registered with the Financial Services Authority (OJK) as a fintech lending platform.

In his official statement some time ago, IOH Chief Commercial Officer Ritesh Kumar Singh said Bima Credit was a diversification strategy to strengthen the ecosystem of digital lifestyle products and services in the Bima+ application. “This service is to answer the financial needs of Tri customers in the future,” he said.

Meanwhile, Maucash Chief of Marketing Indra Suryawan added, his party was trying to provide access to cash loans for the community during the Covid-19 pandemic. “We hope Tri customers can see Bima Credit as one of their financial solutions,” he said.

Business Process

To get a Bima Credit loan, Tri users must register on the Bima+ application with a registered and validated number. This submission does not require any physical documents. Users can select the desired loan value and tenor.

After the data and loan agreement have been approved, the funds are sent directly to the registered user’s account. Meanwhile, the maximum loan facilitated by Bima Kredit is Rp. 500 thousand with a loan period of 30 days and 0% interest. Indosat will add a more varied limit and loan tenor.

IOH SVP-Head of Corporate Communication Steve Saerang said he was studying the possibility of partnering with other loan providers. It also prepares several use cases for other products and services according to user profiles and needs.

“In addition to digital loans, in the near future Tri will provide protection to customers through Bima Asuransi products, such as motor vehicle and personal accident protection,” added Steve.

Operators Enter Into Digital Loans

Furthermore, Steve revealed that the merger of Indosat Ooredoo and Hutchison 3 Indonesia did not affect their respective cellular brands, namely IM3 Ooredoo and Tri. According to him, these two brands can complement each other and enhance users’ digital experiences.

For information, Indosat Ooredoo has officially completed a possible merger with H3I earlier this year. With this merger, IOH now has three cellular brands, namely IM3, MPWR, Tri.

Based on the information we have gathered, Tri and IM3 brand communications are managed by different teams. Meanwhile, both corporate brands are managed under the auspices of the IOH Corporate Communications team.

Therefore, the company presents loan products with different partners. For Tri users, Indosat collaborates with Maucash through the Bima Credit brand. As for IM3 users, the company cooperates with Bank QNB Indonesia through the UCan brand.

IM3 users can access two main UCan products, namely Cash Withdrawal or cash withdrawals and Installment or purchase of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison data package products. Meanwhile, UCan is now included in the myIM3 service ecosystem.

For similar services, Telkomsel previously entered the business model of the fintech aggregator platform Klop since last year. Klop is included in the new OJK cluster as Digital Financial Innovation (IKD).

This platform provides recommendations for loan product choices by relying on the analytical capabilities of prospective borrowers’ data. In fact, digital loans are not the first financial product that telecommunication operators have explored in order to remain relevant for users in the midst of rapid digital development.

Almost a decade ago, all operators went into digital wallet products, but were discontinued because they were not developing. Only T-cash still survives until it is spun off and merged into LinkAja.