KONTAN.CO.ID - JAKARTA. Conglomerates in Indonesia have further strengthened their position in the financial industry, especially in the non-bank financial industry (IKNB). Recently, PT Astra International Tbk (ASII) decided to explore technology-based financial services by launching AstraPay. Astra previously had many subsidiaries in the financial sector, such as insurance and multi-finance. In fact, some of its subsidiaries are players who have contributed greatly in each industry. For example, Asuransi Astra Buana, which until the first semester of 2021 recorded assets of Rp. 14.34 trillion. The company also recorded a 15 percent increase in net profit to Rp 597 billion, driven by high investment returns. Not only that, the consumer finance business owned also has a positive performance. The net profit of PT Federal International Finance (FIF), which focuses on motorcycle financing, also increased by 3% to Rp 949 billion in the first half of yesterday with total assets held at Rp 32.59 trillion. Meanwhile, the net profit of the Astra Group's financial services division increased 2% to Rp 2.1 trillion during the first half of 2021, due to increased contributions from the consumer finance and general insurance businesses. "In June 2021, the Astra Group's financial services business contributed around 24% to the Group's total net profit, of which the Group's consumer financing, which consisted of ACC and TAF for four-wheel financing and FIF for two-wheeled financing as the largest contributor to the financial services division's net profit. ” said Head of Investor Relations of Astra International, Tira Ardianti, to KONTAN, Tuesday (21/9). In addition, Tira also revealed that currently his party continues to focus on developing the Astra Group's financial services ecosystem, especially digital-based ones, including by presenting P2P lending through Maucash products, a financial wealth hub with Moxa, and the AstraPay e-wallet which was just launched last week. Not to be outdone, the Sinar Mas Group through its subsidiary engaged in the financial sector, PT Sinar Mas Multiartha Tbk (SMMA) is also a conglomerate that has enlivened the financial industry. This group has banking, general insurance, life insurance, and multi-finance companies. Director of Sinarmas Multiartha, Dani Lihardja also mentioned that the insurance sector has the biggest contribution to performance. According to him, this is because the pandemic situation has changed the behavior of consumers who prioritize insurance products. "Contributions for SMMA are in order from Insurance, then Bank and finally Multifinance," said Dani. For the insurance company from the Group founded by Eka Tjipta Widjaja, Sinar Mas MSIG Life Insurance is the largest with total assets of Rp 16 trillion in semester 1-2021. Followed by Sinar Mas Insurance with total assets of Rp 9.01 trillion. Dani also revealed that Sinarmas in recent years has also aggressively entered the digital-based financial market by developing three fintech lending platforms, such as PT Pasar Dana Loan (Danamas), PT Oriente Mas Sejahtera (Finmas) and PT Dana Loan Inclusive (PinjamanGo). “The majority share is Danamas. Our portion is 66.66% and Japanese Itochu is 33.34 percent,” said Dani. In addition, there are Djarum Group and Salim Group which also have a business in the IKNB sector with the multi-finance business being their flagship. Djarum Group owns BCA Finance with assets of Rp 8.81 trillion and Salim Group owns Indomobil Finance with assets of Rp 13.57 trillion. "The expansion and intensification of cooperation with automotive dealers will continue to be improved so that there will be more debtors whose financial needs can be served," said Indomobil Finance CEO Gunawan Effendi. The crowd of Indonesian conglomerates has also narrowed in the digital wallet sector. The presence of AstraPay from the Astra Group adds to the intense competition in this industry with the current number of users reaching 2.3 million users. In this digital wallet industry, there is DANA which is part of the EMTEK Group. The number of users of the DANA application continues to grow and has now passed 80 million users. DANA CEO Vince Iswara also sees competition in the financial technology industry as a positive contribution from industry players. According to him, the competition to innovate often presents new services that are solutions to people's needs in the digital era.

"Our focus is to provide the best and more valuable experience for the community to experience the convenience, security and convenience of transacting using DANA through continuous innovation, initiation and collaboration with various parties," said Vince. In addition to Dana, there are also OVO from Lippo Group and Gopay from GoTo Financial, each of which has a large market share in this industry with an increasing number of transactions. For example, OVO, which in the first semester had recorded an increase of 76% in the number of online transactions of OVO merchants.