BC Card And Mandiri Bank Decide To Establish Joint-Venture That Will Serve As A Bridgehead In Southeast Asia And Middle East
South Korea’s credit card payment and settlement system is going to be directly exported to Indonesia, which has population of 250 million people, as if it is being transplanted in Indonesia.
BC Card (CEO SeoJoonHee) signed on a contract on the 23rd that will establish joint-venture in Indonesia with Indonesia’s biggest national bank called Mandiri Bank. CEO Seo Joon Hee and Director Budi Sadikin of Mandiri Bank signed on an agreement on the 23rd and will finish establishment of joint-venture by end of this year.
Both businesses are establishing separate subsidiaries for establishment of joint-corporation. BC Card is establishing ‘BC Asia Pacific’ in Indonesia, and subsidiaries will serve as payment system export bases that oversee over Southeast Asia, Middle East and others by becoming mother companies of joint-corporation.
BC Card’s joint-venture is going to perform credit card processing work such as establishing credit card system, working on credit card purchasing task, expanding affiliated stores, supplying terminals, providing marketing platform and others. Mandiri Bank will expand its business such as card businesses in Indonesia and affiliated stores’ business by using system and solution that are provided by BC Card. If joint-venture is established by end of this year, BC Card will develop and supply about 330,000 payment terminals and officially start the business in second half of 2016.
It is meaningful that South Korea that has totally different card situation from Indonesia chose Indonesian card processing platform. Indonesia does not have separate VAN businesses that act as proxies for purchasing task and calculation of cards. Instead banks install payment terminals at affiliated stores and work on purchasing and calculating task, and there have to be 3 to 4 payment terminals per affiliated store due to this problem. Industries have been saying that Indonesia’s payment system falls behind because it does not have integrated terminal.
Because successful establishment of joint-corporation means that it will be first ever for South Korea to transplant card settlement system in foreign countries, it seems that it will serve as a yardstick to measure and judge South Korea’s competitiveness in payment settlement system. If BC Card’s processing technology is implemented, settlement task that used to be provided per bank will be provided together. Also it can provide enhanced terminals, and affiliated stores can introduce marketing that used to be provided per bank to their customers by combining them together.
“This is the first time for South Korean financial business to export card processing business. By using this opportunity as a stepping stone, we are currently examining and thinking about entering Southeast Asian countries that have similar market demands and economic level of closeness with Indonesia. We are planning to go after business and establishment of infrastructure based on financial ICT with KT Group and also jump into variety of high-value businesses such as Fintech408 by actively utilizing capabilities that group businesses possess.” said CEO Seo Joon Hee.
BC Card became close to Mandiri Bank as it performed purchasing business consulting with it in May of 2011. BC Card afterwards participated in a bid that selects a business that specializes in purchasing processing for Mandiri Bank and was selected as a final candidate that has the chance to become a first negotiator after competing with other top 10 global businesses for more than a year.
“We’ve thought highly of BC Card’s technologies in Indonesia and its reliability. We are going to look for many other businesses in the future where we can work together with BC Card.” said Director Budi Sadikin of Mandiri Bank.
(Jakarta) Indonesia =
Staff Reporter Gil, Jaeshik | osolgil@etnews.com