BRI Ventures, the venture capital arm of financial services firm Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), is set to invest Rp 300bn ($21m) in Indonesia-based mobile wallet developer Fintek Karya Nusantara (Finarya), DealStreetAsia has reported.
The state-owned BRI Ventures will receive a 19% equity stake in Finarya through the investment.
Finarya operates a mobile payments platform called LinkAja that lets Indonesian consumers safely pay for a range of everyday purchases using their smartphone.
The technology is already distributed through BRI and two of the latter’s banking peers, Bank Negara Indonesia and Bank Mandiri, in addition to telecommunications firm Telkomsel’s network.
Indonesia’s minister for state-owned enterprises (SOEs), Rini Soemarno, reportedly expects more Indonesia-based SOEs, specifically transportation providers, to back Finarya in the future as the government looks to beef up its presence in the mobile payments space.