The increasing popularity of digital payments is undeniable in Indonesia. But, according to McKinsey and Company, 99 percent of transactions in the country are still being carried out using cash. However, the real competition is how do you move people away from cash? Once people get away from cash there are many things that you can offer them through the digital wallets. 

GoJek was launched in 2010 with just 10 driver-partners and zero appearance in financial services. In not more than 10 years, Gojek launched its digital wallet GO-PAY. It accounts for around 30 % of the total electronic money transactions in Indonesia.

In such a small period of time, the company has partnered with more than 300,000 micro, small and medium enterprises across the country. This is an extraordinary achievement, analyzing Indonesia is a cash-heavy nation. In Indonesia, cash is king and no other technology has ever been able to compete for the throne. This was the scene until GO-PAY entered the scene.

GO-PAY has been confronting the status quo since it was founded. It is advancing to oust cash as the most preferred form of payment in Indonesia.  GOJEK is empowering the earlier unbanked with an opportunity to enter the formal monetary system by partnering with hundreds of thousands of MSMEs and millions of drivers.

So, in what way is Go-Pay bringing a change in the society that majorly uses cash? 

Know the business strategy of Go-Pay before acquiring P2P lending white label solution

Should you go digital or not?

The most important reason people like cash very much is because of its tangibility. They can actually see, touch and smell cash. All these physical ways make people believe in a comfort level comprehending that the money they saved up over the years is in the drawer beside their bed. Till the time it is actually not there. 

When you deal with cash, it gets difficult for you to to keep track of your spendings and income. Although you can write it down every time you spend and receive money.  But there are chances of losing your cash in some or the other way and disrupting the record of your cash flow. 

GO-PAY provides every user with transaction history so that they can easily keep track of their spending. The users can easily view their spendings and stop the drainage of the most. The data allows individuals to manage money in a better way. 

Old habits don’t go away soon

Changing one’s habits is very difficult. So, GOJEK is changing its customers’ habits by providing them incentives to use GO-PAY. Financial stimuli such as cashback and discounts were then included to promote the choice of digital money. The customers were allowed great discounts for paying their rides with GO-PAY. 

Moreover, Gojek has partnered with the most popular bubble tea joints to provide cashback and exclusive promos for GO-PAY users.  This system demonstrated to be such a success that the queue at the bubble tea joint grew even longer than ever previously.

Alike partnerships were then brought up with convenience stores and drug stores and also with MSMEs. 

With all of this happening, more customers opted to use GO-PAY and the driver-partners of Gojek were motivated to open the digital account to accept payment.

The financial advantage is sufficient for GOJEK’s users and service providers to begin using GO-PAY. But once the financial advantage is no longer available, will customers keep using GO-PAY or not is the question. 

Not everyone is aware of the GO-PAY functioning

Although the financially savvy agree that GO-PAY’s advantages are past financial value, those who don’t know about the technology might find it less convincing.

Many of the driver-partners are not aware of financial services and management. Such people might not consider that GO-PAY adds any special value to their financial transactions. 

The people who were unable to top up their accounts needed someone else to do it for them. So, Gojek enabled GO-PAY top-ups in convenience stores to make the task easier for such customers. With the measures taken to spread awareness for GO-PAY, a behavioral change is already visible among the drivers.

More and more drivers are now observed holding the money they receive from their customers’ digital payment in their GO-PAY wallets instead of withdrawing money at the end of their day’s work. 

A few of them are now collecting some money from a day’s work in their GO-PAY accounts. They are also making transactions using the GO-PAY wallet to buy groceries or pay their bills.

Inevitably, many drivers have begun to appreciate the non-monetary advantages of going digital. And, most importantly, they are now involved in the regular financial system. Financial inclusion has been established over time to promote the well-being of the poor and earlier unbanked. 

The numbers can be multiplied by  2 million GOJEK driver-partners and more than 300,000 MSME merchants in order to say that GO-PAY has easily become the solution for Indonesia to enhance financial inclusion.

Financial inclusion

GOJEK has huge plans for GO-PAY’s future. Right now, they are majorly focused on tertiary payments. GOJEK is planning to facilitate more primary payments within its services.

Even without GOJEK’s push for GO-PAY, the drivers have already begun using the services beyond receiving and paying for services in the GOJEK app. Using the Go-BILLS feature, GO-PAY users can pay several bills from electricity, social security, cable TV and internet, water and gas, along with many other things.

GO-PAY has not just impacted the payments but much more. We can say that GOJEK has started enabling digital financial inclusion in Indonesia. We can say that it is just the beginning. 

Are you interested to make an impact in the world like GO-PAY? If yes, we can help you with our extraordinary white label solutions for digital wallets. Connect with us and make a change in the world of finance with awesome P2P lending solutions.