Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Bank BRI) operates the largest bank in Indonesia by assets, specialising in microfinance and consumer businesses. Recognising the disruptions from new players and the huge potential in Indonesia’s unbanked and underserved population, Bank BRI has given priority to developing innovative products and initiatives with a customer-centric value proposition. In 2019, the bank maintained its leading position in retail banking by achieving profitability and strong growth in both retail deposits and consumer loans.

“The bank’s strategy on managing MSME businesses is focused on two things - encourage existing customers to move up to a higher level, and provide services for as many people as possible at the lowest cost to grow its customer base,” said Sunarso, president director at Bank BRI.

Building a digital financial ecosystem to expand market reach

Given the geographic features of Indonesia, the bank has successfully built an extensive offline and online footprint through strategic placement of branches, enhanced digital platforms and growing BRILink agent network. In 2019, it broadened the BRILink community to a total of 422,160 agents spread across 49,184 villages or 66% of total villages in Indonesia. With BRILink, the bank works with its customers to serve as agents to provide online banking transactions using various devices such as electronic data capture (EDC) and smartphones.

The bank also launched BRImo, a mobile app with finger print and facial recognition capabilities that enables customers to conduct contactless banking transactions such as opening a BRI Britama Muda Savings account. By end of 2019, it has onboarded 2.96 million BRImo users.

Continuously developing innovative products to meet customer needs

In February 2019, the bank released digital loan products targeting both micro businesses and individuals. First, the bank launched Pinang a mobile-first, self-service, end-to-end digital microfinancing product which accelerated loan origination to loan disbursement from two weeks to two minutes. By end of the year, the total disbursement of Pinang reached $2.08 million (IDR 30.6 billion) with a total of 7,331 borrowers.

In December 2019, the bank also introduced Ceria, a cardless installment product for financing transactions through e-commerce, online travel sites, and ride sharing. The product utlises a digital-verification, scoring, and signature system to enable consumers to apply for credit within minutes.

In addition to introducing digital products, it also equipped its existing retail loan products with BRISPOT, a one-stop-shop mobile app for account officers to assist them in the end-toend lending process. It accelerated loan processing time from an average of five days to less than two days in micro segment, from 14 days to less than seven days in small and mediumsized enterprise (SME) segment and from 14 days to less than five days in consumer segment. BRISPOT redefined business process which increased productivity of account officers by 20%.

Working hand-in-hand with customers during the COVID-19 crisis

The micro businesses segment is one of the most impacted groups during this pandemic. The bank offered a loan restructuring programme to ensure the survival of borrowers’ businesses during this difficult time. The bank also strengthened its digital products and channels to support all customer segments in line with the public health protocols.