Indonesia

Shopee acquires Bank BKE

On the back of a booming digital financial services sector in Indonesia.

Reuters has reported that Indonesia's Financial Services Authority (OJK) has revealed that Sea Group's e-commerce arm Shopee has acquired Bank Kesejahteraan Ekonomi (Bank BKE) with the aim of transforming it into a digital bank.

 

OJK official Anung Herlianto said that Shopee, Southeast Asia’s largest e-commerce platform, has yet to make an official application with the banking regulators to transform Bank BKE into a digital institution, but they are “currently preparing the infrastructure to do so.”

 

He told reporters that OJK was preparing regulations for new digital banks, which would likely be released in mid-2021, but that a digital lender like Bank BKE would be expected to prepare 3 trillion rupiah ($213.64 million) in capital.

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