Bank Indonesia Recognizes Only One Type of Digital Signature for Fintech

Press Release: For Immediate Release

Jakarta, May 8, 2018

The rise of online lending companies—now commonly known as fintech companies—has prompted Bank Indonesia (BI) to step up its monitoring of the financial technology industry. BI is taking a more serious approach to overseeing fintech products and services, business models, risk management, and how fintech companies handle their customers’ information. Bank Indonesia recently released a list of fintech companies, payment gateways, and fintech support companies that have passed Bank Indonesia’s inspection.

Of the twenty-four companies listed above, PrivyID is the only digital signature provider that has been audited and recognized by Bank Indonesia as a financial technology support system.

Bank Indonesia recognized PrivyID as a supporting system for the fintech industry after evaluating various aspects of the company—ranging from the digital signature technology provided by PrivyID, to its information risk management practices, financial condition, and transactions conducted on the PrivyID platform. Once registered, PrivyID must report monthly on the number of transactions, its products and services, business model, and any changes in share ownership. Simply put, in addition to being officially recognized, PrivyID is now also supervised by Bank Indonesia.

According to PrivyID CEO Marshall Pribadi, PrivyID intentionally registered with Bank Indonesia to demonstrate that the integrity and security of its digital signature system and business practices are recognized by the regulator. “Now that we’re registered with BI, people can see that PrivyID’s digital signatures aren’t just random scribbles on a tablet—they’re overseen by a regulator as reputable as Bank Indonesia. Many fintech or digital signature companies claim they’re the best at this or that. But ultimately, we need a neutral third party to evaluate them, and Bank Indonesia is highly competent in assessing fintech companies and their supporting services,” said Marshall in Jakarta.

Digital Signatures Help Fintech Companies Grow

The fintech industry has indeed flourished over the past three years. Official data from the Indonesian Fintech Association indicates that 135 fintech companies have joined the association. Meanwhile, as of April 2018, 44 fintech companies were officially registered with the Financial Services Authority (OJK).

Some of the fintech companies that have adopted digital signatures to improve business efficiency include Awan Tunai, Koin Works, and Klik Acc. Using PrivyID’s digital signature solution has made the processing time for loan application documents significantly faster—even with a much larger volume of documents.

Awan Tunai, for example, has been able to cut the time needed to process loan application documents down to just a matter of hours. “It used to take us two days; now it only takes two hours,” said Windy Natriavi, COO of Awan Tunai, during a media gathering in Yogyakarta last March 2018. Because document processing time has been reduced, Awan Tunai can now process five times as many loan application documents—increasing from just 100 to 500 documents per day.

In addition to helping fintech companies, PrivyID’s digital signature is also widely used by companies ranging from national to multinational enterprises—such as Bussan Auto Finance—as well as corporations like Telkom Indonesia, BNI, Bank Mandiri, and CIMB Niaga. According to data from Bussan Auto Finance, they were able to cut document processing costs from Rp5.4 billion to just Rp70 million per month.