At IDR 520 trillion (US$35.8 billion) Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) is Indonesia’s second-most valuable business by market capitalisation. It is also the only bank to have taken a step towards digitisation via its agricultural subdivision, BRI Agro.

While its contemporaries, Bank Central Asia (BCA) and Bank Mandiri, are launching digital banking apps from under their main roof, BRI’s decision to turn a 32-year-old BRI Agro into a digital bank is unusual to say the least. It announced the change in May.

Like all conventional banks, BRI, too, has come face-to-face with a potentially disruptive, new digitisation wave.

AUTHOR

Nadine Freischlad

Nadine is based in Indonesia. She covers Southeast Asia's super apps, the changing nature of work and employment, and other structural shifts happening as a result of digital disruption.

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