Bank Negara Indonesia Acquires Digital Banking Platform Bank Mayora

PT Bank Negara Indonesia Tbk (BNI) on Monday (Jan. 24) announced it will acquire about 64% of digital banking platform PT Bank Mayora, helping the new parent company enter a space it previously hasn’t been able to navigate, according to a DealStreetAsia report.

BNI will acquire 1.03 billion new Bank Mayora shares and 169 million shares of the digital bank that had been owned by World Bank affiliate International Finance Corporation. BNI’s takeover of Bank Mayora and Bank Mayora’s transformation into a digital bank will likely take effect in May, with the deal financed through BNI’s retained earnings.

PT Mayora Inti Utama will own the remaining 36.08% of Bank Mayora after the BNI acquisition closes this spring. Sea Ltd. is involved with the acquisition as the technology partner of BNI.

BNI’s acquisition of Bank Mayora can be successful if both lenders combine business loans, short-term online loans and investment services, said Bhima Yudhistira, director of the Center of Economic and Law Studies, in the DealStreetAsia report. It’s often cheaper to acquire a digital bank than create one from scratch, he said, which explains the thinking behind BNI’s thinking of acquiring Bank Mayora.

Related: Singtel, Grab Each Snag 16.3% of Indonesia’s PT Bank Fama

Last week, telecommunications firm Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel) and ride hailing and payments firm Grab Holdings Ltd. each bought 16.3% of Indonesia’s PT Bank Fama International to expand their offering into that nation.

Indonesian conglomerate Elang Mahkota Teknologi Tbk (Emtek), which remains the majority owner of PT Bank Fama International after the Singtel and Grab investments, said it sold part of the bank to “accelerate and expand business growth” of Bank Fama.

Emtek will own almost 63% of Bank Fama once it issues the shares to Singtel and Grab, it told Indonesian stock market officials, while an unnamed company will own about 5%. Singtel and Grab each paid 500 billion rupiah ($35 million) for their shares.