Remarks of President of the Republic of Indonesia During the Opening of the OJK Virtual Innovation Day 2021, 11 October 2021 at the State Palace, DKI Jakarta Province

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh,

Good morning,

May peace be upon us all,

Om Swastiastu,

Namo Buddhaya,

Greeting of Virtue.

Distinguished Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs and Cabinet Secretary,

Distinguished Chairperson, Vice Heads, and all ranks of the Financial Service Authority’s Board of Commissioners,

Distinguished Deputy to Country Director of the Asian Development Bank Said Zaidansyah,

Distinguished Country Director of the World Bank Satu Kahkonen,

Distinguished Financial Services Industry actors,

Ladies and Gentlemen.

COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digitalization the recent years and it must be responded to quickly and appropriately.

We are now seeing the emergence of digital banks. We are now seeing that digital banks continue to grow, digital insurances continue expand, as well as other e-payment platforms, all of which deserve our support.

Financial technology (fintech) providers also continue to emerge, including sharia fintech. Fintech innovations continue to develop and the phenomenon of economic sharing has become a trend including peer-to-peer and business-to-business economy.

However, I learn that there are still a lot of frauds and financial crimes. I learn that there are people in lower-middle-class that become victims of frauds and are trapped by high interest from online loan providers, forcing them with various ways to pay the loans.

Therefore, we must maintain, safeguard, and facilitate this rapid development, while at the same time allowing them to grow properly for the people’s economy.

If we safeguard it rapidly and appropriately, Indonesia has a great potential to become a digital giant following China and India and it can bring us to become the seventh largest world economy in 2030.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This momentum must be followed by the development of a strong, sustain digital financial ecosystem – a responsible digital financial ecosystem that has a risk mitigation for possible legal problems and social problems in order to prevent losses and improve protection for the people.

Financing of fintech must also be encouraged for productive activities, including providing access for people who are not reachable from banking services, helping MSMEs to carry out cashless transactions, helping the acceleration of MSMEs’ improvement and helping MSMEs to go digital.

I order the OJK and business actors in this ecosystem to ensure the financial inclusion that we want to achieve, followed by the acceleration of financial literacy and digital literacy so that the advancement of digital finance innovation can provide benefits for the whole community and inclusive economic growth.

Financial inclusion must provide a wider access for the people, especially people in low-middle class. It also must be a solution to curb the number of social inequality and it must be able to reach community segments that have not been reached by conventional financial systems.

Digital financial providers must also be Indonesia-oriented, not only Java-oriented in order to help the acceleration of the digital finance transformation all over Indonesia.

Therefore, I order the entire financial services industry to carry out financial literacy and digital literacy programs, starting from villages, from the outermost areas of Indonesia so that the people not only can utilize the services of financial industry, but [financial inclusion] can also facilitate their entrepreneurship with a low risk.

It is my hope that a resilient, sustainable digital financial ecosystem continue to be maintained in order to speed up the acceleration of the inclusive national economic movements and give a greater contribution to the economic recovery that we are carrying out.

Your commitment, your support, and your hard work are eagerly awaited by economic actors, especially small economic actors, actors in MSMEs sector to immediately escape from the impact of COVID-19 pandemic and to grab new opportunities.

That concludes my speech on this auspicious occasion.

I thank you.

Wassalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.

Om shanti shanti shanti om. (AP/EP)