Koperasi Pintar

There's a type of business structure that's enshrined in the very Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia since its founding in 1945. And today, there are literally THOUSANDS of these businesses operating as the lifeblood of the Indonesian economy.

No, it's not the general stock corporation. It's the cooperative.

Cooperatives in Indonesia provide all manner of services and products. There are manufacturing coops, farming coops, trading coops, and everything in between. There's also a special kind of coop that's authorized to act as a bank: the Financing Cooperative.

Financing cooperatives in Indonesia are authorized to accept investment capital and savings, and to offer financing to their members. Basically, they're like banks. But unlike banks, financing coops are not owned by shareholders. Instead, they're owned by the very members that use the services.

Unlike banks - the coops are established for the benefit of the community. Their aim is not to return a profit to shareholders. Rather, their aim is to help their community prosper. If you compare coops to a bank, the Coops employ a much more humane and ethical approach to lending. Banks often resort to AGGRESSIVE collections tactics, causing stress and even leading to suicide of the borrowers. But the Coops take a lighter touch, and that better customer service keeps their members loyal and coming back.

But these finance coops have a massive problem. Most of them were founded or conceived in a pre-digital Indonesia. Most of them lack basic digital infrastructure: for their commercial financing business, their charitable programs, or both.

What's worse, these coops are facing stiff competition from online loan sharks that operate using a pure digital model.

It's time to help cooperatives to modernize. That's why I started Koperasi Pintar.

Koperasi Pintar provides digital tools to financing cooperatives to help them modernize their operations to stay competitive in a digital-first world.