Indonesia Projected to Be Southeast Asia’s Largest e-Wallet and Buy Now, Pay Later Driver By 2025, Retailers Must Adapt to Maintain Competitiveness

Jakarta – 21 February 2022 – Digital payment adoption which is growing rapidly in Southeast Asia is estimated to further support the region’s booming e-commerce market. According to an IDC InfoBrief commissioned by 2C2P, there will be a quarter billion new e-wallet users in Southeast Asia by 2025, with Indonesia expected to welcome the largest number of new users - 130 million - by 2025. Likewise, Indonesia is expected to be the largest BNPL market in Southeast Asia by 2025, with the total BNPL spend on e-commerce projected to increase 8.7 times compared to 2020.

2C2P, a leading enterprise payments player in Southeast Asia, explained how the evolution of increasingly diverse payment methods must be quickly leveraged by retail players to accelerate their business reach. Adi Nugroho, as Country Head of 2C2P in Indonesia said, “The presence of new options such as e-wallet and BNPL provides access to people who have not previously been touched by conventional financial services. These millions of new users are a new customer segment that local businesses need to accommodate.” An IDC 2021 Asia/Pacific survey found that merchants could expect an average 10% increase in sales when adding a single new popular payment method.

Adi also explained how big players in Southeast Asian countries have to adapt quickly to catch up with the development of alternative payment methods. In Malaysia, the transformation carried out by one of 2C2P’s aviation clients is an interesting example. Their adoption of a comprehensive and well-connected payment gateway expanded the company's reach to target alternative payment users, with the number of customers using alternative digital payments increasing from 10% to almost 30% of total sales in 2019.

Sharing insights from the experiences of 2C2P’s clients in various countries, Adi recommended the following payments criteria for retail players looking to adopt digital payments such as e-wallet and BNPL:

• Support domestic and international payment options in various markets as well as customisable payment features;
• Consolidate offline and online payments (omnichannel) in one platform to optimize company operations;
• Scale and adapt continuously along with operational developments; and
  Possess a high track record in security.

“The presence of digital payments brings great potential for businesses, in terms of strengthening relationships with customers, providing a better customer experience, as well as driving business scale and expanding the market. At the same time, retail players still need to consider Southeast Asia's heterogeneous payments landscape. Each country has its own uniqueness, with varying levels of internet penetration, financial access levels, regulations and user preferences. If this can be addressed properly, the adoption of digital payments will have a significant impact on the company's performance," Adi concluded.

2C2P is a payment gateway provider that has a trusted track record in Southeast Asia. Since 2003, 2C2P has empowered the world’s leading enterprises like IKEA, Lazada, Thai Airways and more to securely accept and make payments through one point of integration.