Being the Core of the National Payment Ecosystem

Using Way4 Switch, Finnet connects 90 banks, 120 billing companies and 800 merchants. After 150% revenue growth and 34% growth in transaction flow with its first Way4 project, Finnet decided to migrate two more switches to the Way4 platform.

OpenWay Group has been supporting the Indonesian payment leader ever since Finnet migrated to the Way4 Switch platform nearly a decade ago.

“During these years OpenWay has proved to be a reliable and supportive partner,” says Erman Suherman, Operation, IT & Innovation Director, Finnet.

Migration to Way4 Switch: reasons and outcomes

Soon after Finnet was established, the company realized that legacy transaction switches could not fully support its strategy of “becoming the leading Indonesian and global-scale service provider of electronic payment systems”. Most solutions on the market were just back-end systems relying on XML protocol. Finnet required an innovative payment switch platform with powerful messaging, high availability and a modern mechanism for seamless integration and building online interfaces between information systems.

Way4 Switch platform from OpenWay Group met all those requirements and more.

Erman Suherman adds: “We chose WAY4 for its flexibility, modularity, and cost-efficiency.“

The migration was accomplished swiftly by the vendor’s team in 2006. Since then Finnet has been profitably developing the Way4-based part of its business. The low TCO of the new switch has allowed the company to compete on pricing with banks. Today Finnet serves and connects over 60 financial institutions and 20 billing companies on Way4.

In 2015 Finnet achieved 34% annual growth in transaction flow. The year was also remarkable in terms of revenue, achieving 150% growth compared to the same period in 2014.

Finnet recently decided to replace two other legacy systems with Way4 in order to further reduce the costs of maintaining its payment processing infrastructure.

A promising future

Indonesia’s GDP is on the rise, and so is consumer spending. The unique geographic spread of the population explains the strong demand for branchless financial services. The popularity of online and mobile payments is growing, additionally fueled by the Government’s desire for a “cashless Indonesia”.

The Indonesian payment ecosystem is transforming. In addition to banks, telcos, billing companies and payment gateways, there is an increasing number of e-money issuers and other non-bank financial providers. The market requires interoperability between all the payment industry players, and here lie rich opportunities for Finnet.

In 2015 Verifone, Finnet and Telkomsel launched “TCash Tap” – NFC mobile payments in retail stores. Finnet’s role is to provide mobile user access to Indonesia's banks nationwide, facilitate interbank connectivity, and support a wide range of payment types and acceptance options.

“We chose WAY4 for its flexibility, modularity, and cost-efficiency.“

Finnet believes in the future of such projects, and in the benefits of introducing payment innovations of its own.

To celebrate and support Finnet’s ten-year run of success, OpenWay and its partner Metro Asia Pacific ran a workshop in Jakarta for the Finnet team. The participants discussed payment trends, both global and those specific to Indonesia. OpenWay presented the Way4 product roadmap, and its most recent innovative solutions – Way4 Tokenization, Way4 Digital Wallet, and Way4 High Availability.