BRI Agro partners with Payfazz to expand its digital banking services

By Leandra Monteiro

Bank Rakyat Indonesia Agroniaga (BRI Agro) has inked a deal with local agent-based FinTech company Payfazz.

Using the API of its signature digital lending app Pinang, the bank’s digital savings and lending solutions will be channelled to 250,000-plus Payfazz agents as end-users. With this, agents will also be able to pass on the same offerings to their collective 10 million monthly active customers across rural Indonesia.

The deal will rapidly see BRI Agro’s digital savings accounts become more easily availale to underserved Indonesians in rural areas. The partnership will fast-track BRI Agro’s plan to go beyond agriculture-focused lending and become a digital bank.

According to media reports, BRI Agro’s CEO, Kaspar Situmorang said “Gig and service economies gained a stronger foothold in rural Indonesia due to accelerated digital adoption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, but many of these microentrepreneurs still lack access to basic banking services that can help them grow their businesses, mitigate risks, and build healthy credit profiles. With Payfazz acting as yet another channel for our digital savings and micro-lending solutions, BRI Agro takes a giant step closer to becoming the financial home for Indonesia’s gig economy. We are especially excited to bring Pinang — with its flat 1.24% interest rate and two-minute loan approval process — to over 10 million non-urban Indonesians via Payfazz.”

According to media reports, Hendra Kwik, Payfazz’s CEO and Co-Founder said, “Here at Payfazz, we see banks and other fintech outfits not as competitors, but as potential partners. We concentrate the vast majority of our resources in rural areas. This includes vetting and onboarding agents and understanding the nuances of different provinces. With this in mind, we can help BRI Agro channel its competitive savings and lending solutions to rural Indonesians quickly and securely. Down the road, we hope to expand this partnership to BRI Agro’s more complex products such as insurance and investments, then eventually toward formalizing these so-called informal economies.”

The tie-up with Payfazz is one among BRI Agro’s numerous partnerships with FinTech companies, a key strategy to widening the digital bank’s footprint via third parties. According to the company, in 2020, BRI Agro’s FinTech partnerships resulted in IDR215 billion (~US$14.8 million) worth of loans disbursed across third-party apps.