Investree Collaborates with Bank Jago Targeting MSMEs

Fintech lending (fintech lending) startup Investree has hired Bank Jago as a lender or institutional lender. Both target Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

The cooperation between the two is a channeling scheme, namely providing credit from Bank Jago to SMEs or borrowers through Investree. This is Investree’s first synergy with digital banks in Indonesia.

“This strengthens the position that fintech is not a competitor to banks, but a complement,” said Adrian Gunadi, Co-Founder and CEO of Investree in a press statement, Friday (6/8).

He said that this collaboration was an important milestone for Investree’s business continuity. In addition, it also strengthens the digital economy ecosystem.

“We complete the banking function, especially in meeting the public’s demand for more practical access to financing,” said Adrian.

In terms of market segmentation, Bank Jago serves the wider community, retail, and middle-class customers, both conventionally and sharia. To target this market, the Gojek-supported bank is partnering with fintech lending and other digital ecosystems.

Aiming to Target MSMEs

The Investree and Bank Jago partnership targets SMEs, especially those that have not met banking requirements in obtaining financing.

“Our attention and efforts will focus on the recovery and empowerment of SMEs so that their businesses can run sustainably,” he said.

From each fact sheet that will be provided by Investree, Bank Jago will choose a loan offer according to their preferences and risk profile. For now, the distribution of financing will not be limited to certain business fields or sectors.

That means, borrowers from any business sector have the opportunity to be financed by Bank Jago. In this collaboration, the digital bank is committed to providing loans of IDR 100 billion.

“We hope that this collaboration will be able to encourage the participation of SMEs in utilizing the financial support provided by digital banks through the fintech lending platform,” said Adrian.

Apart from Investree, Bank Jago collaborates with several fintech lending. They include People’s Capital, Akulaku, and Accelerator.

Head of Business Partnership of Bank Jago Sonny Christian had said that the company was aggressively engaging fintech lending to reach consumers who were difficult for banks to reach.

“This is to have a larger business scale,” he said in a webinar titled ‘Fintech 2021’, on March (9/3). He said that fintech isn’t the opponent for digital banks, instead it’s a complement.

“We believe that collaboration between banks with fintech can complement each other,” said Sonny. Digital banks excel in terms of liquidity. While fintech, according to him, is more agile to reach customers who are difficult to reach by banks.

RI’s Potential Unicorn Candidate

So far, only one platform has managed to reach unicorn status or have a valuation of US$1 billion in only one platform.

As is known, the fintech with unicorn status is called OVO (PT Visionet Internasional), a fintech platform for electronic payment clusters & digital wallets from the Lippo Group.

Another unicorn, not a fintech, because it was not born and grew up through its main line of business as a financial service provider, even though it has financial services on its platform or its business is closely related to financial services.

The DSinnovative Startup Report 2020 had described 43 platforms on the list of startups that had ‘centaur’ status or had a valuation of US$100 million to US$999 million, of which 17 of them came from the fintech sector.

Fintech P2P lending is the type of fintech cluster that most enlivens the ranks of the next unicorn candidate startups, even though the valuation is still considered to be in the range of US$500 million.

Several names appeared, including PT Investree Radhika Jaya (Investree), Modalku Group created by PT Mitrausaha Indonesia, KoinWorks created by PT Lunaria Annua Teknologi, AwanTunai made by PT Simplefi Teknologi Indonesia, and PT Amartha Mikro Fintek (Amartha).