Grab‘s Dominant Position in Indonesia’s E-payment？

That Tokopedia has become a key investor of OVO arouses people’s curiosity about future directions of the ecosystem of Indonesia’s e-wallet. Grab is leading a Series B round of up to US$100 million in commitments into Indonesia’s state-backed e-wallet LinkAja, the companies announced in a statement on Tuesday.

This marks LinkAja’s first external investment from a private company, as well as a new twist in the long-running e-wallet war between rivals Grab and Gojek. LinkAja’s Series B round is joined by three Indonesian heavyweights: domestic telco Telkomsel, BRI Ventures, the venture arm of state bank BRI, and Mandiri Capital Indonesia.

Neneng Goenadi, managing director of Grab Indonesia, said: "We chose to invest in LinkAja because we believe that together, we can help accelerate our shared goal of improving financial inclusion in Indonesia."

Top 4 E-wallets in Indonesia

Indonesia, with its huge population scale and relatively sound economic development, draws great attention from e-wallets. There was a time when banks, telecoms companies, retailers, and consortiums all wanted to step into e-wallet.

Among 37 local players in Indonesia’s e-payment market, Gopay, one of the services available in the Gojek superapp, is the first to get the licence, thus taking the lead in Indonesia’s e-payment because of various services offered by its parent company. In 2018, after Grab’s tie-up with Uber, Grab began to gather momentum, cooperating with OVO, which is an e-wallet operator incubated by Lippo Group, and establishing a relatively complete ecosystem with some enterprises like Tokopedia, the leading C2C e-commerce player. In 2019, its trading volume surpassed that of Gopay in the subsidy battle.