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DBS today announced a tie-up with Go-Jek, the Indonesian transportation and technology company. It looks to be a meeting of like minds.
Euromoney has written at length about both institutions. DBS is the bank that wants to be seen as, and valued as, a tech company; Go-Jek is the ride-hailing and food delivery company that wants to forge a second career as a payments company. Both see the value in taking one entrenched skill set and applying it to another opportunity.
The tie-up is billed as a regional strategic partnership, and its first illustration will be the launch of Go-Jek’s ride-hailing app in Singapore in the next few weeks, with DBS closely involved. At this early stage, it seems to involve DBS customers getting privileges for using the Go-Jek service, which is not, in itself, particularly groundbreaking: Citi does the same with Grab, Go-Jek’s main competitor in Indonesia. But more may follow.
Tan Su Shan, DBS’s group head of consumer banking and wealth management, will speak about the partnership at the Singapore FinTech Festival this week; ahead of her presentation she has said, in released remarks, that DBS is committed to “making payments simple, seamless and invisible for our customers”, as it has tried to do in-house through its DBS PayLah! Mobile wallet. “In doing so we are stepping up to partner with like-minded companies like Go-Jek, one of southeast Asia’s most iconic technology companies, to build inclusive digital ecosystems for our customers.”
In August Euromoney spent a day with Go-Pay, the payments arm of Go-Jek, a business distinctive for its grass roots-level engagement which includes elements of microfinance. Go-Jek’s ambitions in payments have been made clear by a slew of three simultaneous acquisitions in the payments space, all of which are still being integrated now; the intention is expected to be that wherever Go-Jek expands to (most recently Vietnam), its payments arm will follow.
Go-Pay is not mentioned in the DBS/Go-Jek announcement today, and it’s not clear if the end goal is for DBS to be the wallet for Go-Jek in Singapore, or to integrate with it. But it is not a surprise to see two groups with a common mindset partnering in this way.
