Heaptalk, Jakarta – In the past, the stock market reflected a terrible specter for people where many people assumed that the filed is created solely for the upper class. The poor financial literacy, the great amount that should be deposited, the limitation of stock for retail, and the high risk followed towards the stock market have made people’s guts shrank from enjoying the vast benefit served by the market.
People tend to believe that the best way to conduct investment is through property ownership, an investment that is more real than buying stock. In fact, instead of having property that promised an annual profit of less than 15 percent, the stock market actually offers a great potential to bring multiple numbers of earnings to the investor’s pocket.
Yet, the Covid-19 outbreak that urged digital transformation has started to turn people’s pessimism towards the stock exchange field. Digitalization that provides more access to obtain information has promoted people to gradually understand the field, especially young and technology-savvy generations. Regardless the literacy towards the field has increased, according to the survey conducted by Indonesia Financial Service Authority (OJK), only two out of five people have adequate financial literacy.
Although in 2019, the percentage of Indonesian that comprehended the financial field increased by 8.33% year-on-year (yoy), the research involved 12,773 respondents aged more than 15 in 34 provinces across Indonesia also reported that only 34% of people understand the field. In 2013, the number even was lower where only 21.8% of Indonesian recognize the field. In 2003, the diminutive number of financial literacy had motivated Wellson Lo, Sigit Kouwagam, and Johny Susanto to establish Stockbit, a social network and investment platform.
“At the first time We start to run Stockbit and Bibit, We realize that there was a big gap towards financial literacy in Indonesia. This fact also brought impact towards the low number of financial inclusion between 271.34 million Indonesian. We realize that the main factor that caused the fact was the lack of well-managed retail investment products provided for people,” said CEO Stockbit Sigit Kouwagam.
The presence of Stockbit and Bibit assists Indonesian to enhance financial literacy as well as financial inclusion to gather more retail investors, especially in the pandemic situation. Stockbit has provided information, news, and analysis that can help people to make lucrative investment decisions. Social network features in the platform also enable users to share information or idea on Stockbit’s page or other social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. By the benefits, nowadays, Stockbit claimed that more than 500,000 investors had joined the platform.
Moreover, in 2019, Stockbit has performed acquisition towards Bibit, a mutual fund platform, and developed its feature through adding a robo-advisor, powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), to help the budding investor. Robo advisor assists investors by providing suggestions measured by a specific algorithm that was adjusted with the investor’s target and background.
For the innovation and also supported by the pandemic situation, Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) and the Indonesia Central Security Depository (KSEI) in East Ventures Digital Competitiveness Index 2021 reported that retail investors or single investor identification (SID) of the platforms in 2020 have risen, from 2.48 million to 3.87 million yoy. Still, the trend continues proven by the number of the total SID that reached 5 million until April 2021. The increase of SID numbers towards Stockbit and Bibit has affected the platforms to grow two times and five times during the same period, respectively. The spectacular growth presented by Bibit has brought the Firm to bags US$65 million of investment at the beginning of May 2021.
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