In 2014, 2 billion people around the world were unbanked. The number was astonishing, considering that there were 7.25 billion people back in 2014, which means that more than a quarter of the population did not have a bank account. 

The problem with this was that a lot of these people did not have access to financial facilities. In other words, these people were financially excluded. The issue made organizations around the world attempt to distribute access to these populations, prompting the rise of financial inclusion.

Financial Inclusion in Indonesia

As an attempt at giving equal financial access to vulnerable social groups, financial inclusion has become a campaign for banking institutions in Indonesia. In fact, this campaign is supported by the government itself. In 2017, 40 million Indonesian adults were unbanked, and the financial inclusion rate was about 50%. A 2019 report by OJK (Financial Services Authority) reported that our financial inclusion improved to 76.1%. With such an accelerating rate of financial inclusion, financial institutions can benefit from Big Data tools which can ensure the campaign’s success.

MSIGHT’s Potentials in Supporting the Financial Inclusion Campaign

As a Big Data platform, Telkomsel’s MSIGHT can generate massive insights for financial institutions. MSIGHT’s features include Risk Insight, Mobility Insight, Lifestyle Insight, and API Services. These features will allow MSIGHT to support financial institution’s strategies in developing financial inclusion. More specifically, MSIGHT’s features can support financial inclusion campaign in various ways, including but not limited to:

• Effectively Reaching out to Excluded Groups 

This is the very essence of financial inclusion. As financial inclusion aims to reach out to vulnerable and excluded groups, there can be challenges in methods of reaching out to these groups. MSIGHT, however, can bypass this challenge by providing a more-than-sufficient amount of data. With MSIGHT’s features, financial institutions can gather information prior to approaching these groups, allowing them to plan, develop, and execute the best strategies of communication.

• Gathering Insights for Financial Inclusion Measures

The best insights come from a large pool of data. The more data that one has, the better the action plans will be. When financial institutions need relevant insights from a large set of data, they can find a tool like MSIGHT very helpful. With a database covering more than 140 million customers, MSIGHT can give financial institutions the best information. Data related to people’s movement, demographics, and psychographics will serve well for the development of financial inclusion campaigns.

• Mitigating Risks 

As financial inclusion involves more people, the campaign automatically increases the amount of risk that a financial institution can have. Running manual background checks on each consumer is an outdated conventional measure that can take a long time. With more people involved as the financial inclusion campaign develops, MSIGHT’s risk insights can provide financial institutions with analysis on a consumer’s behavior, allowing a more secure conduct of financial matters.

• Better Marketing

For the campaign to succeed, financial inclusion has to be accompanied with marketing strategies that can effectively communicate to audiences. Poor marketing insights can lead to ineffective communication, which will waste a large sum of money. On the other hand, gathering information from MSIGHT can allow financial institutions to know customer’s tendencies and preferences, which will definitely be helpful in terms of marketing communication.

• Improving Policies

Last but not least, MSIGHT can offer insights for improving policies related to financial inclusion campaigns. When we talk about financial institution’s customers in a country with populations as diverse as what Indonesia has, forming effective policies can be difficult as there could be cultural and socioeconomic barriers. Just like the World Bank’s FINDEX uses big data to develop financial inclusions in 150 countries, Indonesian financial institutions can benefit from MSIGHT’s data for the same campaign nationwide.