Home-grown crowdfunding portal Crowdo has expanded to Indonesia to offer peer-to-peer lending to businesses there. Crowdo will use its platform to match Indonesian investors with companies there which need loans for working capital. Borrowers repay the principal sum with interest. Since Crowdo will offer only collateralised loans, the interest borrowers pay is expected to be lower.

Indonesia knows more than most Asian nations what global market ructions can do, having borne the brunt of the Asian financial crisis and the 2013 taper tantrum. The world’s fourth most-populous nation is now strengthening its defenses as contagion risk looms from Greece to China. President Joko Widodo’s administration has asked China to buy Indonesian sovereign bonds, the Finance Ministry said in Jakarta on Thursday.

People in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta, where public transport is poor and the traffic horribly congested, have eagerly welcomed ride-hailing apps such as Uber for car rides and Gojek for motorcycle rides. San Francisco-based Uber entered Indonesia in August last year as part of its expansion across the Asia-Pacific region. Gojek, a local company that has been operating since 2011, has an average of 200 new drivers per month.

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The government is ready to meet fundamental economic challenges that the country is facing right now, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) stated here on Thursday. "We are currently facing fundamental economic challenges, but the government is prepared for it," he remarked during a meeting with academicians and members of the business community.

JAKARTA-based programmatic advertising company Adskom said it has raised Series A funding of an undisclosed amount, led by Japan’s supply side platform (SSP) and advertising network Geniee. The two other firms participating in the round were Convergence Ventures from Indonesia, and existing investor East Ventures from Singapore, Adskom said in a statement.

Uber Technologies says it is working to establish itself as a technology company in Indonesia to avoid legal hurdles. Source: AP Uber Technologies says it is working to establish itself as a technology company in Indonesia, to avoid legal hurdles after police launched an investigation into the company’s operations last month.