. WeLab’s shareholders also have a presence in Indonesia. Allianz, for example, has more than 650,000 customers as of last year.
“So in the future, Indonesia will have the same structure as in Hong Kong, where we will have a lending platform and a digital bank. We will operate in conjunction with each other and there will be a lot of synergies,” Loong says.McKinsey . About 78% of Indonesian customers in its survey last year is an active user of a digital bank, up from 57% in 2017. The pandemic, with its social restrictions, has spurred the growth of digital banking, as 80% of the survey respondents aim to maintain or increase their use of mobile or internet banking beyond the pandemic.
“In the next couple years, we will focus on building the pan-Asian digital bank—the first in Hong Kong, now Indonesia. We continue to look for other markets. I think there are few markets that we found interesting,” Loong says, naming Thailand and Vietnam as examples. WeLab is also eyeing to go public later this year after it completes the acquisition and consolidation, a move that was also postponed in the wake of market volatility. “When we will go to investors for public or private funding, people now already have more confidence because of a proven track record,” says Loong.