Indosat sees mobile banking as key to customer retention

Indonesian mobile operator PT Indosat has signed a contract with PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) to provide mobile and internet banking services to clients of the state-owned bank. The Jakarta Post notes that the move is designed to improve the cellco’s customer loyalty and subscriber retention, and improve data usage in a competitive domestic market. Indosat has more than 50 million users and under the terms of the plan, Indosat subscribers with accounts in BRI bank will be able to download BlackBerry, Android and Java applications that will grant them access to the bank’s mobile banking services. The cellco has also issued special modems that can instantly link modem users with the bank’s internet banking services, it said. Given that only 70 million of the country’s 240 million-strong population currently have bank accounts, Indosat chief marketing officer Erik Meijer says the implementation of e-banking will provide opportunities for growth.