Bank Rakyat Indonesia is finding success in its race to improved digitalisation and meeting individual client needs.
Agus Noorsanto, wholesale and institutional business director at Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), on how the lender is enhancing its current account portfolio with customised banking solutions.
How does Bank Rakyat Indonesia balance the needs and requirements of its individual and corporate clients when it comes to current account offerings?
There have been major changes in people’s lifestyles and the way business has been interacting with society in recent years due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In light of this, BRI has implemented a balance between the individual and corporate client segment. We have enabled our current accounts, known as Giro BRI, to be able to interact with both platforms and services for each customer segment, which ultimately helps create a full chain in the business ecosystem.
These platforms and services are engineered to create efficiencies so that our clients, ranging from individual buyers to corporate clients, can easily execute financial transactions. It must be noted, however, that BRI does not only care about creating efficient services and platforms that integrate with both segments. We also pay attention to profitability and the complete product cycle to ensure all our solutions are tailored to fit our customers’ needs.
What are the unique features and benefits provided by BRI’s current account offering?
The Giro BRI accounts hold deposits from clients in the form of the local currency as well as foreign currencies. These deposits can be withdrawn at any time via multiple channels and methods such as chequebook/bilyet giro (BG), over-the-counter, ATMs and digital modes.
At present, the development of the digital banking business is rising up the agenda in Indonesia as banks look to become more agile in responding to rapid market changes. The use of technology has changed the customer’s mindset towards financial transactions and BRI is striving to innovate and adapt to these trends to offer its clients the latest digital solutions. Some of the features offered by our Giro BRI account are as follows:
Multiple currencies: BRI provides a variety of currency options including the local IDR and 11 foreign currencies.
High-yield accounts: Our Account Preferential Rate (APR) is a solution that accommodates the special rate of the Giro BRI account in both IDR and foreign currency, thus allowing for several types of interest rate calculation schemes. With APR, a special rate can be input into the system and calculated automatically using an agreed scheme. BRI offers seven such types of special rate schemes that can be adjusted according to customer needs.
Customised accounts: We offer almost 49 types of liquidity accounts to accommodate our customers’ needs. These range from Regular Customer Accounts (RDN) and Special Lender Accounts (RDL) to more complex solutions such as the Notional Pooling Account.
Transaction tools: In order to help our customers easily manage their transactions, we provide multiple cash transactional tools for collection and disbursement, such as virtual accounts, digital saving machines, Bilyet Giro and our state-of-the-art Wholesale SuperApps platform – QLola by BRI.
Automatic transaction capabilities: We have developed multiple capabilities to automate client transactions, ranging from Automatic Fund Transfers (AFTs) and Automatic Grab Funds (AGFs) to Automatic Transfer Systems (ATS).
Moreover, for those clients who have ultra-advanced automation needs, we have prepared multiple integration modules within our automatic transaction capabilities to support seamless and secure transactions.
What are some recent improvements made to BRI’s current account offerings?
For the past few years, BRI has been dedicated to enhancing its products and capabilities keeping digitisation in mind, particularly in the case of the Giro BRI account. We have now launched the Digital Safe Machine to improve our clients’ cash flow management for collection and disbursement.
This machine is equipped with a system that can record cash deposited into the machine and credit it to the merchant’s account in real time using application programming interface (API) technology to connect directly to the bank’s core system. In addition, to improve the liquidity position of our clients, we provide the Account Preferential Rate, a system that accommodates the special rate for Giro BRI accounts in both IDR and foreign currency using multiple interest calculation models and types. This solution is aimed to reduce the cost of funds in blended competitive pricing to create a more attractive alternative solution for clients.
It must be noted that all the improvements mentioned so far helped BRI improve its ranking in the national Giro position in December 2022, closing at IDR350tn [$22.8bn]; the bank came in at 2nd in December, compared to 4th place a year earlier.
How does BRI plan to continuously improve and evolve its current account offerings?
Globally, the rapid development being witnessed in the technology sector has driven the banking industry to embrace change and transformation. In Indonesia, the influence of the digital era is clearly evident in the lives of people, especially when it comes to the financial industry, where people require a safe, efficient and reliable system to support their financial needs.
This is where our app – QLola by BRI – comes into the picture; it enables us to cope with increased demand and supports us in adding more value for our clients. QLola by BRI focuses on providing efficiency, reliability and peace of mind for clients, and enables them to access various BRI wholesale products and services, including financial dashboards, remittance trackers, cash management, trade, guarantee, foreign exchange, investment and custody, on one platform, using just one login ID.