The development of digital technology is currently increasingly massive, one of which is in the banking sector. Digital banking continues to evolve and produce various innovations to answer the needs and meet the lifestyles of people who have now transformed into digital forms.

The past COVID-19 pandemic has also become one of the accelerators of banking development in the digital era. Quoted from CNBC, during a pandemic that restricted activities or mobility, people finally adapted and made transactions using digital-based platforms.

Thus, the trend of digital banking in 2022 will continue even though the pandemic has gradually improved. This continuous development is due to the real benefits of digital banking for customers, such as practicality, convenience, personalization, and security. This has triggered various Indonesian digital banks to compete with each other to complete their services with various innovations. Until now, the list of OJK digital banks has more and more choices.

Definition of Digital Banking

A digital banking service is a banking activity or service whose facilities use an electronic or digital system through the property of a bank, the property of a prospective customer, or a customer of the bank, all processes of which are carried out independently and automated.

Meanwhile, according to Forbes, digital banking is services and products that can be accessed by customers anytime and anywhere because they are internet and digital based. While the term digital bank is a bank that provides banking facilities and services online or by other electronic channels.

Digital banking can help customers' needs to be able to access banking services including account creation and registration (onboarding), making payments, e-commerce transactions, applying for loans, investments, to financial management easily, quickly, anywhere and anytime.

In terms of security, digital banking also faces challenges that evolve with its technology. Conventional banks may be better in terms of KYC (Know Your Customer), but digital banks can be more efficient and are required to have a qualified security system and IT infrastructure to maintain the confidentiality of customer data.

Factors Driving the Development of Indonesia's Digital Banking

QR code banking digital

Based on the Blueprint for Digital Banking Transformation from the OJK in 2021 and based on the presentation of the OJK Senior Executive Analyst of Digital Finance Innovation Group, Moh Eka G., there are several factors driving the change in banking services towards digitalization, namely:

1. Changing Consumer Expectations

Consumers or customers have increasingly high expectations of the banking services they want to get. This relates to the increasingly high development of information technology and technology. These expectations are related to the safety of products and services as well as convenience.

2. Existence of Internet Penetration and Mobile Devices

The increase in the number of internet users every year is in line with the growth and innovation in the financial sector. In fact, there have been 88 organizers of Digital Financial Innovation until now. The use of mobile devices such as cell phones, tablets and laptops is also growing.

3. Mobile Application Growth

Currently the development of mobile applications or platforms is also continuing, so as to increase banking transactions. This also makes a transformation in financial services. Not only digital banking applications, use of non-financial platforms such as ride-hailing, food, OTA (online travel agents), and e-commerce are also starting to be integrated or starting to offer their respective financial services

4. Conventional Business Models that Go Digital

The presence of digital banks ultimately makes conventional businesses also adapt to the digital field because this model is more effective and efficient. This change can make the reach and penetration of banks reach more categories of society.

Also read: Examining Digital Payment Trends in Indonesia and BRIAPI's Role in It

 

Benefits of Digital Banking

Looking at the supporting factors regarding the development of this digital bank, the benefits that you will receive if you use it include:

1. Unlimited Service Access

Because all services at digital banks are carried out online, you can access various financial and banking services anytime, 24 hours, and anywhere without being tied to bank working hours.

Customers no longer need to visit a bank branch office to access and manage finances. Even now, digital banks also support offline services at branch offices, such as the presence of the Queue Management System feature.

2. More Efficient Tariffs

The presence of digital banking services is also able to reduce fees and rates charged to customers. This is due to the easy integration of digital banking services with other platforms through the API (Application Programming Interface).

One example of an API is BRIAPI, BRI's API service is able to integrate BRI products and services with various third-party platforms more quickly, exchange data more securely, and costs much less than the Host-to-Host method.

3. Variety of Beyond Banking Features

Through its application platform, digital banking players are competing to be able to present features that are able to answer various customer needs. The benefits provided by these features are no longer limited to banking services, but also beyond banking, spanning various ecosystems.

To answer customers' needs for financial services, for example, BRI provides the convenience of transferring funds through BRIVA, cardless cash withdrawals, payments using QRIS, to paying bills from various billers such as telephone, electricity, water, game vouchers, and so on.

4. Security

Security is always the highest priority in providing digital banking services. Now, pin numbers are not the only defense of security when making transactions. There is multi-factor authentication that guarantees account security, for example the presence of biometric authentication and OTP (one-time password).

Even so, cybersecurity challenges faced by digital banking have also evolved, for example the rise of social engineering that takes advantage of ignorance and common people with low digital literacy. Therefore, the growth of digital banking also needs to be followed by education and efforts to increase digital literacy.

5. Financial Control and Personalization

Digital banking services, both through mobile banking and online banking, allow you to have complete control over your transactions and finances. Starting from savings, transfers, withdrawals, payments, to investments can be made in real-time.

Apart from that, personalization is also the most widely felt benefit of digital banking. Customers can manage, access, and get banking service offers that best suit their needs. Some digital banks also allow customers to be able to manage their finances, for example by dividing them into certain posts.

Also read: Trends in Digital Payments in Indonesia and BRIAPI's Role in It

 

Examples of Digital Banking Services

There are a variety of Indonesian digital banking services, we give an example of several services belonging to Bank Rakyat Indonesia, which has continued to develop its digital products since 2017 until now.

1. BRImo

You may already be familiar with BRImo because its existence has long accompanied customers to more easily access BRI's financial services. Until now this service will continue to develop to make customers feel more helpful.

Its role as mobile banking makes BRImo more and more frequently accessed by customers. BRI continues to develop so that BRImo can become a financial super app to meet the needs of the community in the financial sector.

Some examples of BRImo development are opening an account without having to visit a bank, withdrawing cash without using a card, top up credit, and top up digital wallets and BRIZZI.

In addition to feature development, user experience is also a consideration. For example, fingerprint and facial recognition methods when accessing BRImo to maintain security practically.

2. BRIAPI

BRIAPI is a development of BRI bank services based on open banking to speed up and simplify the integration process between BRI services and products with various third-party frontend applications.

BRIAPI is a gateway for collaboration and integration of BRI services with more digital and non-digital ecosystems in Indonesia. Thanks to BRIAPI, BRI services are not only available on BRI platforms, but can also be accessed through other platforms.

For example, Shopee for payments via BRIVA, Klik24 for digital drug purchase transactions, to make it easier to pay education fees such as at Sanata Dharma University.

3. Ceria

In 2019, amidst the booming trend of digital lending by fintech companies, BRI took the lead as a pioneer in providing digital loans for e-commerce transactions through Ceria.

Ceria functions as a digital credit card that offers a limit of up to IDR 20 million with a tenor of up to 12 months for transactions on various Ceria partner platforms, such as Tokopedia. Ceria offers loans that are safe, easy and super fast, which only takes less than 5 minutes from submission to disbursement.

With a buy now pay later system, Ceria provides solutions to the needs, tendencies and habits of millennials in shopping and forming credit history.

Digital Banking Challenge

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In addition to the many opportunities to become digital banking to meet people's needs, there are also challenges that accompany it. These challenges can come from internal and external digital banking. Internal challenges, for example regarding changes in culture and mindset within the company.

Internally, digital banking players must prepare qualified IT infrastructure and cybersecurity systems. In addition, in terms of developing features and financial services, they must also be able to respond to the changing needs of customers.

Meanwhile, from external factors, the development of digital banking services must also consider the varying levels of digital financial literacy and digital adoption capabilities of the target market.

Closing

Based on the explanation regarding digital banking, it can be concluded that the potential is enormous and can provide many benefits for customers. If your company is still doing business conventionally, then it's time to join as a BRIAPI partner so that it can continue to exist in the digital era.