JAKARTA, INDONESIA — SBI Holdings Inc., a major Japanese financial services conglomerate, has acquired a stake of more than 5% in PT Bank Amar Indonesia Tbk. (Amar Bank), making it a top institutional investor in the pioneering Indonesian digital bank.
The investment, announced Thursday, signals strengthening global confidence in Indonesia’s rapidly growing digital banking sector and its focus on the retail and micro, small, and medium-sized enterprise (MSME) segments.
SBI Holdings, which trades on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, is now the third-largest institutional investor in Amar Bank, joining controlling shareholder Tolaram Pte. Ltd. and PT Jagat Raya Imajinasi.
Vishal Tulsian, president director of Amar Bank, welcomed the new shareholder, noting the bank’s intention to collaborate with SBI’s extensive portfolio.
“We aim to collaborate with their portfolio of companies and leverage their strong financial services ecosystem to share expertise, build synergies, and ultimately deliver even greater value to our retail and MSME customers across Indonesia,” Tulsian said.
Navin Nahata, managing director of Fintech & Infrastructure for Tolaram, called SBI’s entry a validation of Amar Bank’s strategy to revolutionize services for the retail and MSME segments.
“By bringing together all our respective capabilities and expertise, we are confident that this will further accelerate Amar Bank’s roadmap and support its efforts to expand access to financial services, enhance customer experience, and create sustainable impact,” Nahata said.
Amar Bank, founded in 1991 and relaunched digitally in 2015, operates the Tunaiku digital loan platform, which uses big data and predictive analytics to serve previously unbanked populations. The bank launched Indonesia’s first cloud-based mobile smart bank in 2020.
