Indonesia’s Gojek invests in Coins.ph

Indonesia’s valuable tech platform provider Gojek is making its debut in the Philippine financial services industry by investing in mobile blockchain enabler Coins.ph, creating a partnership that espouses financial inclusion and digitalization.

Gojek, Indonesia’s largest on-demand multi-service platform, said yesterday that it was making a “substantial” acquisition of shares to support Coins.ph in its rapid growth.

In line with this, Gojek announced a partnership between Go-Pay, its payments platform and the leading digital payments service in Indonesia, and Coins.ph, one of the fastest growing fintech companies in Southeast Asia.

Through its mobile wallet, Coins.ph helps customers easily access a variety of financial services, including remittances and bill payments, on their mobile phone. It has grown its customer base to more than five million in under five years, processing over six million transactions a month.

In Indonesia, Go-Pay is the market leader in digital payment. More than 50 percent of transactions within the Gojek ecosystem are now done cashless through Go-Pay.

“We are very proud to showcase the success of Philippine startups. In just a few years, our team has been able to build a scalable service extending financial services to millions of Filipinos,” said Ron Hose, Coins.ph founder and CEO.

“Coins.ph and Gojek share the same vision that made each a success in their markets—empowering their customers by giving them lower-cost and more convenient access to services. Together we have a tremendous opportunity and by leveraging Gojek’s resources and expertise, we can give Filipinos even more convenience, choice and access to the services they want.”

According to a WeAreSocial 2018 report, Southeast Asia has one of the highest rates of mobile connectivity in the world, with Indonesia and Philippines boasting higher mobile user penetration and mobile connectivity than the worldwide average. Yet, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas reported that in 2017,  about 77 percent of the Filipino population remained unbanked, 60 percent of adult Filipinos still conducted payments through cash, and over 80 percent used over the counter services to send and receive money. —DORIS DUMLAO-ABADILLA