Bank BRI: Revolutionizing Financial Inclusion in Asia with Digital Banking

Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Bank BRI) is a government-owned bank and one of the largest banks in Indonesia. The bank is committed to increasing financial inclusion among unbanked Indonesians and has an aggressive target of having 84 percent of Indonesians participating in the banking system by 2022. Bank BRI specializes in using modern digital banking to facilitate microfinance lending across its network of over 10,000 branches and thousands of branchless agents. The bank is also the biggest microfinance lender in the ASEAN region and has the largest network of any bank in ASEAN.

Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Bank BRI), one of the largest banks in Indonesia, was faced with the challenge of increasing financial inclusion among unbanked Indonesians. The bank had an ambitious target of having 84 percent of Indonesians participating in the banking system by 2022. However, the bank's legacy technologies were proving to be a hindrance in achieving this goal. Each of the bank's products had their own public APIs, which were difficult to manage, secure, and monetize. Additionally, the process of onboarding new partners using host-to-host and VPN technology was time-consuming, taking up to six months. The bank also faced the challenge of reaching a largely rural population, with an estimated $8.3 billion in currency being held outside the banking system.

Bank BRI adopted the Cloud Apigee API Management Platform as the bank's digital nucleus to transform its legacy technologies. The bank implemented a web-native frontend over a new technology stack with Apigee as a second layer. This made it easier to manage the entire API lifecycle and reduced the time taken to onboard new partners from six months to less than an hour. To reach the rural population, the bank launched Agent BRILink, a nationwide network of branchless agents. These agents could open new accounts, take deposits, pay out withdrawals, and process and disburse loans in under two minutes with the Pinang microfinance mobile app. The bank also operated its own satellite to overcome connectivity issues in rural areas. Additionally, Bank BRI integrated with the Indonesian government ID database using the Cloud Vision API for instant identity verification.

• The adoption of the Cloud Apigee API Management Platform and the launch of the Agent BRILink network transformed Bank BRI's operations. The bank was able to manage its APIs more efficiently and onboard new partners in less time. The bank also became the first in ASEAN to receive ISO 27001 certification, enhancing its trustworthiness among partners and customers. The Agent BRILink network enabled the bank to reach unbanked Indonesians in rural areas, increasing financial inclusion. The use of the Cloud Vision API for identity verification improved the bank's lending decisions. Overall, these changes have helped Bank BRI meet and surpass its goals for digitalization, financial inclusion, and revenue generation.

• Contributed $50M in revenue through the Apigee monetization feature

• Reduced partner onboarding time from 6 months to under 1 hour with Apigee developer portal

• Reduced loan approval and disbursement time from 2 weeks to 2 minutes with Pinang app