A lineup of post-COVID-19 pandemic music concerts, from Coldplay to Blackpink, has driven more Indonesians to turn to fintech lending to get quick funds.
Outstanding loans from digital platforms reached 51.5 trillion rupiah (US$3.42 billion) in May, up 28 percent from a year earlier, the Indonesian Financial Services Authority (OJK) said.
The regulator is warning borrowers to be wary and not to borrow beyond their means.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Most of those who have difficulty paying off loans usually borrow for consumer needs, for example buying new gadgets, recreation, fashion, and even recently to buy concert tickets,” OJK Commissioner Friderica Widyasari Dewi said in a briefing on Tuesday.
Smartphone penetration is outpacing the growth of banking access in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, enabling Internet-based financial services to grow rapidly as an alternative to conventional lenders to help small businesses get funds to expand. However, more than half of outstanding loans are still concentrated in Jakarta and the neighboring West Java, and only about 40 percent of the funds go to small businesses.
The ratio of bad online loans — credit that borrowers do not pay back for more than 90 days from maturity — also rose to 3.36 percent in May, from 2.78 percent at the end of last year, even if it was still below the 5 percent threshold set by the regulator.
“We continue to advise people to understand the risks of online lending, especially the dangers of illegal fintech,” Dewi said.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
RSS