Indepay has announced the launch of its mobile-first transfer platform tara.app framework. tara.app is an interactive social commerce framework meant for D2C businesses, brands merchants, micro-merchants, warungs, and nearby retailers powered by the Indepay Transfer Platform. It is designed to bring new online orders and instant payments for Indonesian MSMEs through an open platform by providing instant technology enablement to fast-track the digitalization process for merchants and brands. The framework also enables these businesses to with a social commerce interface quickly, conveniently, and economically.

Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Jakarta, Indepay has designed its Open Transfer Platform to accelerate digital payments with real-time account-to-account transfers. Backed by BEENEXT and T8 Capital Partners, Indepay aims to empower the community with the benefits of financial inclusion, enabling businesses and consumers to be future-ready with cash-free transactions.

The tara.app framework relies on open APIs with deep integration with major banks, financial institutions, and technology partners. In a statement shared with TechNode Global, Indepay says that nine major banks are in the process of enabling this open transfer platform.

Indonesia’s digital payments system is considered in its early stages, with approximately 80 percent of bank accounts still not fully digitized. Three out of five transactions are from ATM/debit cards withdrawals or cash transactions, which is true even for transactions done for e-commerce and bill payments. Recent studies and research also show growing internet utilization and changes in user behavior towards social media commerce, suggesting the importance of growing interactive social commerce.

According to published data by the Bank of Indonesia, the country has 160 million registered bank accounts, out of which only 3-4 percent are digitized. Indepay thus sees the potential for digital transformation in this highly MSME-driven economy. Through tara.app, it aims to digitize 100 million Indonesian customers and achieve 1 billion transactions per month in the next three years. It is also going to facilitate transactions between consumers and merchants, such as through instant credit and many other features.

tara.app intrinsically maps the customer’s mobile number with their bank account as their Unique Pay-ID for a faster and secure account-to-account transfer experience. Pay-ID also empowers users to build their digital reputation and helps to maintain security and consent-based control over their financial data. This simplifies management for consumers, particularly those who maintain multiple bank apps and user IDs. Having their mobile number as the Pay-ID provides for faster, convenient, and secure transfers.

Meanwhile, to empower MSMEs in Indonesia, tara.app provides a curated and blended approach, wherein products are embedded with easy and economical payment solutions to drive consumer engagement. This allows for the easy discoverability of products online while supporting MSMEs with network and community participation. This is meant to bridge the gap between merchants and banks through digitization, enabling interactive commerce through social channels with the tara.app framework.

“Higher payment and transfer fees are the major bottlenecks in the development of Indonesia’s startup ecosystem. tara.app working alongside the Indepay team in Jakarta is going to disrupt the market. The deep integration with banks and financial institutions will unlock endless possibilities for Indonesia,” said Rajib Saha, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Indepay.

“COVID-19 has pushed digital commerce into a hyper-acceleration mode globally. In Indonesia too brands, companies, and micro-merchants want to up their digital commerce game as quickly as possible,” added Saha, who has more than a decade of experience in the Southeast Asia payments industry.

“I see the Indonesian Economy to be positively influenced by the evolution of startups and they will have a massive impact in accelerating the GDP growth of the country. We have been investing in various FinTech startups globally and observed that the presence of digitized bank account transfers further drives the growth of the digitized economy in every country. Thus, we have partnered with Indepay to build the much-awaited open transfer platform in Indonesia connecting Banks, Payment Gateways, Switching, and Settlement Operators to offer an ultra-low-cost seamless transfer experience,” said Teruhide Sato, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of BEENEXT.

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