VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Former Research and Technology Minister Bambang P. S. Brodjonegoro encouraged the government and people to accelerate the adoption of digital technology, particularly amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The pandemic that we are going through at the moment is essentially a trigger to accelerate digital transformation," Brodjonegoro stated during a discussion event themed “Winning the Competition in Digital Economic Era,” accessed from Jakarta, Thursday.

The former minister, currently serving in office as president commissioner for PT Telkom Indonesia, remarked that digital technology can be applied swiftly to the structure and economy in Indonesia.

He believed that by conducting digital transformation, Indonesia's digital economy will be able to shift from being natural resource-based to being innovation-based, thereby allowing it to seize opportunities emerging in the market following the pandemic.

Brodjonegoro cited as an example the development that took place in South Korea that was listed as the poorest country in Asia in the 1950s, and through a speedy adoption of digitalization and innovation, it is currently a developed country.

"This is since independent efforts had been initiated with human resources and ended with innovation and product development," he stated.

Meanwhile, Managing Director & Chief Operation Officer of PT Bank DBS Indonesia, Bino Notowidigdo, affirmed that the pandemic had left the people and the industry with no choice but to promptly adopt digital technology as was apparent from a spike in the number of electronic financial transactions, rising by 41 percent, from Rp145 trillion in 2019 to Rp205 trillion in 2020.

"The physical distancing policy has restricted consumers from going to the bank and conducting transactions. This provides an opportunity to adopt digital banking," he affirmed.

Furthermore, President Director of PT Akulaku Finance Indonesia, Efrinal Sinaga, remarked that people, including in the financing industry, had increasingly shifted to digitalization.

He explained that out of the 270 million Indonesians, only some 23.2 percent were listed in the “banked” category, while 26 percent fell in the “underbanked” category, and 50.8 percent others in the “unbanked” category.

Out of the 23.2 percent in the “banked” category, only five percent had access to bank loans, which is a considerably low figure. He noted that opportunities were being provided to financing companies to implement digitalization. (Antaranews)