Mr Bernie Trudel, Chairman of the ACCA, welcomed everyone to the roundtable. He recognised the developments that have been happening in Indonesia in different industry verticals like the financial services and telecommunications companies.
A lively discussion on data flow in Indonesia ensued, moderated by Mr Arun Sundar, chair of the Asia Analytics Alliance, a special interest group of the ACCA. Each panellist gave their viewpoint on the opportunities in Indonesia, despite challenges with regards to the government regulation on data centres (GR82/2012). Cybersecurity was highlighted as an issue that needs to be addressed by the government, as there is no regulation with that focus. Public education is needed given that citizens are generally unaware of the threats of using the Internet.
After a sumptuous lunch, the second half of the session kicked off with two keynote speakers – Mr Yosamartha from Bank Indonesia and Mr Hendrikus Passagi from the Financial Services Authority (OJK).
Mr Yosamartha showed the different approaches that countries like the US, Netherlands, Germany and the UK have towards fintech regulation. For example, the US has no single unified regulator with borrower and investor protection. On the other hand, Netherlands has light fintech regulation and has room for self-regulation.
Mr Passagi gave an overview of the regulatory purview of both OJK and BI, and was open to discuss regulatory barriers with fintech companies through trade associations.
Our final session discussed the topic “E-payments and fintech”. Mr Sassoon Grigorian, Chair of the ACCA Financial Services Industry Special Interest Group, moderated the session. The panellists recognise the foundation cloud and data centres provide the development of fintech companies. They see potential in the following sub-sectors of fintech: P2P lending companies, online pawnshops and payment processing.
Ms Lim May-Ann, Executive Director of the ACCA, thanked everyone who came for the roundtable.
If you are interested to know more about the programme, it can be found here.