WeLab, a pan-Asian FinTech platform, announced the completion of the acquisition of an Indonesian commercial bank, PT Bank Jasa Jakarta (BJJ), together with PT Astra International Tbk (Astra), one of Indonesia’s largest public companies.

The Financial Services Authority’s granting of acquisition permission serves as a sign of completion (OJK). WeLab-led consortium Welab Sky Limited (WeLab Sky), along with Astra subsidiary PT Sedaya Multi Investama, took part in the acquisition for this deal (Astra Financial). Numerous current and new investors, including Allianz X, Boyu Capital, Horizons Ventures, SCBX Group, and TFB (Taipei Fubon Bank) Capital, have lent their support to the WeLab-led consortium.

WeLab and the shareholders of BJJ entered into a Share Purchase and Subscription Agreement in December 2021, and WeLab successfully invested 24% of BJJ. As a result of the most recent transaction, WeLab and Astra now jointly control the bank and hold a combined 49.56 percent of the BJJ stock. The deal is the largest digital bank M&A deal in Southeast Asia in 2022, demonstrating the significant investment in and contribution to the digitization of Indonesia’s banking sector. The stockholders want to make BJJ become Indonesia’s most cutting-edge digital bank.

“Expanding WeLab’s digital banking presence across Asia, first in Hong Kong and now in Indonesia, has been one of our key strategic moves. This partnership with Astra reinforces WeLab’s strategic focus on enhancing cross-country and business synergies with partners to increase scale and reach, in order to further strengthen the breadth and depth of the existing pan-Asian fintech platform. We’re excited that our long-term partner, Astra will be collaborating with us to deliver the best tech-driven banking services through BJJ in Indonesia. We look forward to bolstering the customer trust level with the collaboration with Astra.”

                                                                Simon Loong, Founder and Group CEO of WeLab.

Longtime collaborators in Indonesia’s FinTech sector are WeLab and Astra. Since the establishment of PT Astra WeLab Digital Arta (AWDA), a joint venture for fintech financing, in 2018, this is WeLab’s second strategic collaboration project with Astra. The complementary strengths of the partners—including WeLab’s expertise and technology in developing and operating digital banking, along with Astra’s strong business ecosystem, experience, and extensive distribution network—are highly synergistic and essential success factors for advancing BJJ’s digital transformation and turning it into an innovative digital bank that can meet the country of Indonesians’ needs for digital banking services.

“Investment in BJJ is in line with Astra aspirations in financial services pillars to become leading retail financial providers in Indonesia and support the growth of financial services industry as well as the economy of Indonesia.”

                                                             President Director of Astra, Djony Bunarto Tjondro.