Mastercard Collaborates with Ayoconnect to Drive Financial Inclusion through Open Banking

Indonesia has 202 million internet users or 73% of its total population in 2020 alone, which makes them the fourth largest internet population in the world. Consecutively, a survey by We Are Social in April 2021 found that 88.1% of Indonesia’s internet users have used e-commerce services to buy a product or service in the past few months, the highest percentage globally.

However, this number does not translate to the number of digital transactions among them. This is mostly due to illiteracy, low income, the fact that economic activity is concentrated in urban areas, and lack of access to capital for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). This condition reflects an urgent need to narrow the digital divide and thereby boost financial inclusion so that as many people as possible can access anything from basic payments to savings and investments.

To drive Indonesia’s financial inclusion among all layers of society, Mastercard, a global technology company in the payments industry, collaborated with Ayoconnect, Southeast Asia’s largest Open Finance platform, through a program built on an open banking ecosystem. Leveraging Ayoconnect’s embedded finance network, Mastercard incentivizes Indonesian customers to pay their bills through online platforms. This transaction category was selected to promote Indonesians to transact using digital banking channel, as recurring bills contribute to 24% of Indonesia’s population's monthly expenditure according to Indonesia’s national survey in 2021.

To encourage the cashless transactions, Mastercard provides up to Rp50,000 discount for payment transactions of 10 bill categories through five e-commerce and digital wallet platforms. The 10 product categories include mobile tokens, internet packages, electricity, water, internet, cable TV, landline telephone, game vouchers, health insurance, and digital vouchers. The platforms that have participated in this program are JD.ID and DANA. Other e-commerce is also planned to join until the end of the discount period in June 2022.

Jakob Rost, CEO & Founder of Ayoconnect, stated, “The collaboration between Mastercard, e-commerce platform providers, and digital wallet platform providers is a much-needed synergy to bring a safe and seamless transaction experience for millions of Indonesian customers. Ayoconnect is proud to have the opportunity to become the bridge that connects Mastercard with five e-commerce and digital wallet platforms through our open banking ecosystem. We will continue to strive on delivering innovations to build Indonesia’s financial technology infrastructure as one of the supporting pillars of Indonesia’s digital economy growth.”

Navin Jain, Country Manager, Indonesia, Mastercard, said: “Mastercard is pleased to collaborate with Ayoconnect to provide access to digital banking services that can meet consumers’ needs in the digital era. Through this collaboration, consumers will be able to pay their bills seamlessly and safely via online platforms. Mastercard believes that the digitalization of the payment systems will improve the speed and efficiency of transactions, thus accelerating economic growth and financial inclusion in Indonesia.”

About Ayoconnect

Ayoconnect is an Open Finance platform building full-stack solutions with the mission to power leading companies of today and tech unicorns of tomorrow. Our simple and powerful embedded finance and data solutions help companies (founders, early-stage start-ups, and product decision-makers) launch banking, lending, and payment services in weeks. Founded in 2016, Ayoconnect’s API stack has seen rapid adoption. It is trusted by more than 200 companies, including leading banks, retailers, e-commerce, and fintech such as BRI, DANA, Indomaret, and Bukalapak. Ayoconnect processes more than 500 million API hits annually.

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