Emtek Group acquiring Espay may smoothen up the way for Emtek-Ant Financial joint venture to enter the Indonesian e-money market

Indonesian media conglomerate Emtek Group has “quietly” confirmed the acquisition of two e-money providers Doku and Espay.

In its Q1 2017 financial report (and its previous Annual Report 2016), Emtek reported that it has acquired 50 per cent of shares in Doku’s holding company PT Nusa Inti Artha by October 2016 through its subsidiaries.

Emtek has also acquired 90 per cent of PT Espay Debit Indonesia Koe by January 2017. Both Doku and Espay owns e-money license from the country’s central bank Bank Indonesia.

DailySocial first reported Doku acquisition on October 10, 2016. By the time Doku neither denied or confirmed the report. It also continued to operate as its own company, with no mention of the exact value of the 50 per cent share acquisition.

Apart from e-money licensing, Doku also manages leading payment gateway service in Indonesia.

Also Read: Alibaba reportedly in partnership talks with Emtek Group, opens possibility of Bukalapak investment

Espay may serve as a bridge for BBM’s e-money platform

Espay owns the product uNIK which acquired its e-money licensing in 2016. After Go-Jek’s acquisition of MV Commerce, many big players believe in acquisition as the fastest route to acquire licensing compared to direct registration to Bank Indonesia. We still need to confirm whether a company (and its subsidiaries) are allowed to own two e-money licenses.

While we still have no information of what Emtek plans to do with Espay, there is a strong possibility that its e-money licensing may be implemented on the Blackberry Messenger platform, which it acquired last year.

Previously, Emtek has announced the formation of a joint venture with Chinese fintech giant Ant Financial, an Alibaba subsidiary, to build a payment system platform on BBM. BBM has gone through evolution to become “a platform within a platform” by joining forces with Bukalapak and other services, while building a news and game platform at the same time. The existence of a payments platform will complement this evolution.

The first quarter of 2017 report is yet to contain information on the setting up of the joint venture, and information of the acquisition of Kudo by Grab. Emtek owns 25 per cent of shares in Kudo.

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The article EMTEK Diam-Diam Konfirmasi Akuisisi 2 Penyedia Layanan E-Money, DOKU dan Espay was written by Amir Karimuddin and was first published on DailySocial. English translation and editing by e27.

Image Credit: jippu2498 / 123RF Stock Photo

The post Emtek Group quietly confirms the acquisition of e-money provider Doku and Espay appeared first on e27.

Source: e27