Heaptalk, Jakarta — Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority (OJK) had removed sanctions on PT Akulaku Finance Indonesia’s pay later limitation, allowing this fintech platform to re-disburse financing access through its Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) service dedicated to users.
The President Director of Akulaku, Efrinal Sinaga, conveyed, “We appreciate OJK’s steps in lifting this restriction. The regulator’s dedication to maintaining a compliant environment for financial services industry players is highly commendable. For this reason, we will continue to retain the transparency and subject to the country’s applicable policy,”
This announcement aligned with the OJK determination contained in official letter No. 8/PL.1/2024, dated February 29, 2024, includes lifting restrictions on certain business activities (PKU) for Akulaku. Based on the Chief Executive for supervision of financial institutions, venture capital companies, microfinance institutions, and other service institutions (PMVL) at OJK, Agusman, this fintech has accomplished its corrective action to about 95.13% of the target in action plan.
“Akulaku has fulfilled the follow-up to OJK inspection recommendations earlier. For this reason, we have lifted sanctions related to restrictions on financing business activities from BNPL Akulaku. Thus, a fintech platform can perform this service normally,” added Agusman.
Last year, OJK stipulated a limitation on buy-now-pay-later payment scheme services, commonly known as Paylater, for PT Akulaku Finance Indonesia as of October 5, 2023. The temporary ban was carried out because this Indonesian-based fintech company did not fulfill the supervisory measures requested by the authorities regarding restrictions on the distribution of financing using the BNPL scheme.
According to this financing service, Akulaku is prohibited from carrying out business activities in distributing financing to existing and new debtors using a pay later scheme or similar financing, including channeling financing through channeling and joint financing schemes.
As an effect, Efrinal claimed the current issue had affected the company’s business transactions, dropping almost 30% during the restriction period. To avoid similar problems, he emphasized the company would continue to strengthen cooperation with regulators and prioritize responsible governance.
Additional information: Akulaku Group runs three primary business units, covering PT Pintar Inovasi Digital (Asetku), which focuses on cash loans; PT Silvrr Indonesia (Akulaku), a marketplace unit; and PT Akulaku Finance Indonesia (Akulaku Finance) which provides pay-later service.
In April 2023, this company officially received a new investment from Japan’s financial corporate, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG). This matter confirms previous information that this fintech platform received new capital worth US$200 million from Japan’s largest bank.
