Gojek amps up fintech ploy in Indonesia

Its acquisition of fintech startup Moka will improve monetisation or merchants in GoPay.

Gojek’s growing fleet of fintech companies will drive the ride-hailing platform to become a leading player in Indonesia’s digital payments industry, according to data and analytics firm GlobalData.

Indonesia’s decacorn, currently valued above $10b, recently announced that it is in the final stages of acquiring Jakarta-based mobile point-of-sale (POS) start-up Moka for approximately $120m.

Animesh Kumar, director of automotive consulting at GlobalData, said that Gojek’s purchase of payments companies catered to different segments, particularly Moka, will expand GoPay’s network as well as improve profits for its merchants.

“GoPay service, acquired domestic group-saving network Mapan in 2017. In the same year, Gojek bought two FinTech firms in Indonesia—offline payments-processing company Kartuku and online-payment gateway Midtrans. All the three payments companies cater to a different segment. The strategy seems to be to combine the capabilities of the acquired businesses with GoPay to become the leading player in the digital payments industry in Indonesia,” said Kumar.

He added that Moka will help Gojek in “offering a better service bundle to merchants, expanding its merchant network, and higher monetization from each merchant in its network.”

Meanwhile, the acquisition of Gojek will given Moka access to tens of millions of customers and vast merchant network. Moka’s users currently include retail outlets as well as eateries.