The Top Five e-Wallet Apps in Indonesia

The top five e-wallet apps in Indonesia. Indonesians seem to have embraced cashless transaction solutions wholeheartedly, with a wide range of businesses and services across the city offering them as a payment alternative.

Around 38 e-wallet apps are currently registered at Bank Indonesia. According to a report by meta-search website iPrice Group, the total value of transactions made through these apps in the country was US$1.5 billion in 2018, and by 2023 it is estimated to reach $25 billion.

Below are some interesting data related to e-wallets in Indonesia as compiled by iPrice Group in collaboration with app market data and insight company App Annie.

Locally based e-wallet apps rule

The Indonesian fintech industry is currently dominated by local players. According to App Annie’s Q2 2019 data, the top five e-wallet apps based on monthly active users from both Google Play Store and iOS are GoPay, OVO, DANA, LinkAja and Jenius.

In February alone, transactions made using GoPay reached $6.3 billion, nearly 70 percent of Gojek’s total transactions.

OVO’s steady growth has largely been backed by its partnership with Grab and Tokopedia.

First introduced in 2018, DANA, a joint venture of Emtek Group and Ant Financial and official partner of Bukalapak, has managed to boost its popularity and replace LinkAja in third position in Q2 this year.

Launched on July 30, LinkAja already enjoys a convenient position as it integrates payment services provided by state-owned banks, namely Telkomsel’s TCash, Bank Mandiri’s e-cash, BNI’s UnikQu, Telkom’s t-Money and BRI’s T-Bank. It will soon also partner with Gojek as one of the app’s payment options.

Based on the number of downloads, the top five e-wallet apps are GoPay, OVO, DANA, LinkAja and iSAKU.

According to a study by Jakpat Mobile Survey Platform and DailySocial, 74.6 percent of e-wallet app users in Indonesia are 20 to 35 years old.

Huge room for expansion

E-wallet apps owned by internet-based companies have increased by 50 percent in the past two years. Four of these companies that are among the top 10 e-wallet apps in Indonesia are Go-Jek, DANA, Paytren and DOKU.

Such growth was encouraged by the Financial Services Authority (OJK) in a bid to improve the country’s economic development, as three-quarters of 250 million Indonesian people reportedly still have no access to basic financial services.

Three out of the top 10 most popular e-wallet apps are owned by banks, namely Jenius from BTPN, Go Mobile by CIMB from CIMB and Sakuku from BCA.

Gimmick is key

For many users, among the attractions of using an e-wallet app as a cashless payment method are instant cashback offers and additional points. Merchants claim that cashback promos, which range between 20 to 40 percent, also help increase their sales.

Most popular e-wallet services

According to iPrice data, among the most common services for e-wallet apps are offline transactions, e-commerce payments and public transportation.

Among the other on the top 10 list, GoPay has the most options available with 10 types of services, followed by LinkAja (nine), Paytren (eight) and OVO and DANA (seven).

QR Pay leads the way

QR Pay or QRC (Quick Response Code) is currently used as a payment option by 19 out of 38 registered e-wallet apps in Indonesia. 

In May, the government issued QRIS (Quick Response Indonesia Standard) as a standardization effort to increase the use of cashless payments, as it is found to be a convenient card replacement solution to reach 65 million micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) across the country. The top five e-wallet apps in Indonesia (kes, The Jakarta Post)