Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) announced that it has invested US$1 million in Indonesia Mall, a programme within the bank that helps micro, small, and mid-sized enterprises (MSMEs) sell on third party e-marketplaces.
The objective of Indonesia Mall is to “bring MSMEs online and provide them easy access to a larger local and international market.”
The bank said that it has signed up 10,000 MSMEs, boosting revenues by 40 per cent in the last year alone.
Apart from helping MSMEs open new revenue channels, the initiative also handles shipping and logistics for sellers along with marketing support on major e-commerce platforms such as Tokopedia, Shopee, Bukalapak, Blanja, Blibli, and Qoo10, in order to keep seller’s products visible on an ongoing basis.
According to Kaspar Situmorang, Executive Vice President of BRI, a small amount of undisclosed seed money had been invested into Indonesia Mall during its onset and in the future will “continue to be funded”. He also expresses strong optimism of injecting more capital in the future.
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“The amount of money Bank BRI ends up putting into the programme will be tied to its performance as things move forward. The bank is proceeding with cautious optimism as usual. Indonesia Mall is showing promise, but of course, the team wants to make sure not to overfund it at this point,” he adds.
According to research conducted by GlobalData Indonesian e-commerce has been growing at an average of 16.3 per cent annually and is expected to rise substantially by the end of 2023. The industry is predicted to be worth US$30.3 billion, which reflects a growth of nearly 85 per cent. With the entry of MSME’s growth is expected to be positive.
Pinnacle Strudel, a store selling sweet bread has significantly grown in terms of customers from selling 14 boxes of sweet bread per day to 100 boxes per day. Other companies who have significantly benefitted from this initiative are KiliSuci and Black Garlic who have expanded their market to different countries.
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Image Credit: Ali Yahya
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