BTN to boost remittance business with new partner

PT Bank Tabungan Negara inked a deal to improve Telkom’s Delima remittance business.

Telkom is one of the non-banking institutions that have obtained permission to conduct remittance services.

"Despite existing remittance service providers, we are confident that we will become the leader in the market, because we have a strong network,” Telkom information technology director Indra Utoyo said.

US-based Western Union remains the most popular money transfer service in the nation, favored by Indonesians working overseas to send money back home. State-owned postal service PT Pos Indonesia also provides remittance services in cooperation with several banking institutions.

According to Indra, Delima started about one-and-a-half years ago and now processes from Rp 2 billion (US$209,096) to Rp 5 billion a month, domestically.

Its international service has processed around Rp 1 billion a month, mostly remittances from Malaysia and Hong Kong, since the service was launched in January.

BTN president director Iqbal Latanro said that the firm cooperated with Telkom to improve its service.

“Currently, many banks are trying to give additional services to their customers, partly by cooperating with other companies that will give added value to the services. We see that Delima has good prospects,” Iqbal said.

Besides cooperating with BTN, Telkom has established similar agreements with lender PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia Syariah and with minimarket network Alfamart.

Prior to signing its cooperative agreement with BTN, Telkom provided Delima service in around 730 of its Plasa Telkom outlets and at about 25,000 cash points across the country.

BTN cuurently has 65 conventional branches and 218 supporting branches, 22 sharia branches and 21 supporting sharia branches as well as 367 cash offices. 

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