Indonesia’s blossoming e-wallet market may soon be graced with another big player (pardon the pun) from AirAsia, the airline has revealed.
AirAsia Indonesia President Director Dendy Kurniawan yesterday said the airline is planning to introduce its e-wallet service, BigPay, which is already available in AirAsia base country Malaysia, in Indonesia this year.
“BigPay is almost the same as Ovo and Go-Pay in that they are payment tools,” Dendy said as quoted by Kompas, referring to the two biggest e-wallets in Indonesia owned by Lippo Group and Go-Jek, respectively.
Dendy added that, on top of being an e-wallet, users can also use BigPay to purchase airline tickets, presumably for AirAsia flights (we doubt that it would be open to other Indonesian airlines considering AirAsia’s recent drama with Indonesian travel apps).
BigPay will first be available for AirAsia customers in Indonesia before it’s available for the general public. Dendy said that AirAsia Indonesia will create a separate company registration (PT) for BigPay and register the service with the Financial Services Authority (OJK). The airline boss did not give a specific timeframe as to when BigPay will be available in Indonesia.
Indonesia has a rapidly expanding and highly lucrative e-wallet market. A recent report by management consultancy Redseer estimated that Indonesia’s e-wallet sector will grow from US$1.5 billion in 2018 to US$25 billion in 2023.
