Ribbit Capital backs Indonesia's Bank Jago

Ribbit is an increasingly active player in Asia. It has backed the likes of payments start-ups BharatPe and Razorpay, retail brokerage Groww, buy now, pay later specialist Capital Float in India, money transfer business Viva Republica in Korea, and expense management software provider Fenbeitong in China. Its Indonesia exposure includes robo-advisory business Ajaib.

Bank Jago was born out of Bank Artos, a listed lender that Northstar took control of in 2019, working alongside Bank Tabungan Pensiunan Nasional (BTPN), a former portfolio company. Local ride-hailing business turned super app GoTo – an existing portfolio company – later came in as an investor.

As of July, Northstar, BTPN and GoTo owned 11.7%, 29.8%, and 21.4%, respectively. GIC bought a 9.1% stake in February for approximately $225 million. The size of Ribbit’s commitment or shareholding has not been disclosed.

GoTo has a substantial presence in fintech, but it chose to integrate with Bank Jago rather than launch its own lender. Bank Jago serves as a regulated beachhead for customers that want to open accounts and access related services. Its fully digital platform opened for business in April, promising to enable customers to open accounts in less than 10 minutes from the comfort of their homes.

The Bank Jago app has been downloaded more than 750,000 times, while Sunata Tjiterosampurno, co-CIO of Northstar, told AVCJ in August that 150,000 deposit-holding users were signing up every month. As of June, the bank had disbursed IDR2.17 trillion ($152 million) in loans, up 695% year-on-year and its asset base had swelled by 491% to IDR10 trillion. The business is still loss-making.

Bank Jago’s stock has risen 287% year-to-date and the company has a market capitalization of more than IDR186 trillion.

"We are witnessing a revolution in digital banking around the world. Bank Jago is the first fully digital bank in Indonesia and has made tremendous progress towards growing digital banking services for Indonesians,” Micky Malka, a managing partner at Ribbit, said in a statement.

“Bank Jago’s commitment to serving Indonesia’s consumers with the best digital banking and fintech products matches global peers and we look forward to participating in this journey."

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Financials
• Technology
• PIPEs
• Indonesia
• Northstar Group
• Ribbit Capital
• Fintech
• GoTo