Digital Bank Remains a "Nice to Have" Alternative

I am Randi (29). I currently work as a private employee and live in one of the tier-3 cities in Central Java – working full time remotely. Although living in a small district, access to public facilities such as banks and modern retail is quite easy. I live at home with my wife [housewife] and a toddler. Using the Socio-Economic Status (SES) category commonly used in the survey, my current condition is fit to “A” at the middle class level.

If you look at the financial records application that I manage with my wife, our average monthly expenses are in the range of IDR 4 million to IDR 6 million [increased by 40% after having children]. Some routine expenses are including bill payments, daily necessities, children's needs, health including child immunization, and entertainment. Beyond that, there are always sudden or urgent needs issued every month with an indeterminate amount.

In managing financial flows, we have several bank accounts for specific purposes. Permata Bank is my office payroll, Bank Mandiri used as savings, and Bank BRI is to pay various routine bills. These bank options have each fundamental reason. First, the office mandatory; even though the nearest Permata Bank branch is in the next town which is about 45 minutes away by car. The Mandiri account used for savings is actually my wife's former payroll account when she used to work.

Meanwhile, BRI account is used due to the nearest branch office, across my house along with an ATM. Therefore, it is quite easy if you have to withdraw cash. That's important, because in order to truly become a cashless society here is still challenging. I remember clearly a few weeks ago, the batagor shop near my house had attached a LinkAja sticker; but when I asked to pay with non-cash option, the merchant refused. The same goes with shopping at department stores in the city, the EDC machine sometimes doesn't work, forcing me to withdraw cash at the nearest ATM.

Apart from banks, I also use several e-money services. Currently, I actively using OVO, LinkAja, and ShopeePay. Mostly used for transactions in e-commerce and ride-hailing applications. I use a premium financial bookkeeping app on my phone.

Introducing digital bank

This year, digital banks are getting more popular each day. Even though I know  services such as Jenius or Digibank have been available in previous years, however, I was not intrigued to try at that time, it was also directly offered by salesmen at airports and shopping centers.