Bank Accounts for the People and the Cosmetics of Prosperity Statistics
The Indonesian Government’s plan to allocate Rp 11 trillion from the State Budget (APBN) to automatically open bank accounts for citizens aged 1s7 or new e-KTP holders, complete with an initial balance injection of Rp 50,050, superficially sounds like a progressive breakthrough in financial inclusion.
The government has stipulated that this balance is free of administration fees and can be fully withdrawn. This step is designed to expand financial inclusion while facilitating the distribution of social assistance (bansos) and direct subsidies.
However, from the perspective of public financial management and social empathy, this allocation of trillions of rupiah risks becoming budgetary waste that results in dormant accounts. Without a transaction ecosystem and sustainable income growth, these accounts have the potential to be withdrawn to zero on the first day and then abandoned. Trillions of rupiah in state funds could evaporate into one-time cash withdrawals without providing any long-term impact on the welfare of the recipients.
The World Bank, through the Global Findex (2021), warns that financial inclusion is not merely about holding a savings book or withdrawing social assistance, but rather the ability to utilise financial services sustainably. Relying on the success of inclusion on mass account openings is a form of flawed problem structuring.
William N. Dunn (2018) asserts that the most fatal policy failures occur when governments solve the wrong problem from the outset. If the primary issue for young people and vulnerable communities is limited purchasing power and narrow employment opportunities, the lack of a bank account is not the sole root cause.
Goodhart’s Law and Financial Access Traps
This programme also faces Goodhart’s Law (Strathern, 1997), which states that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. If the bureaucracy focuses solely on the target of “all e-KTP holders having an account,” the statistical achievement on paper may look impressive. However, in terms of economic quality, it will fail if these accounts are not replenished.
The gap in access and understanding is clearly visible in the data from the National Survey of Financial Literacy and Inclusion (SNLIK) by the Financial Services Authority (OJK, 2025). Nationally, the level of financial inclusion is actually very high, reaching 80.51 per cent based on the sustainability method and touching 92.74 per cent using the National Financial Inclusion Strategy (DNKI) method. However, the level of financial literacy remains significantly lower at 66.46 per cent.
Regional disparities are also evident. In urban areas, the financial inclusion rate reached 83.61 per cent with financial literacy at 70.89 per cent. Meanwhile, rural communities recorded a lower financial inclusion rate of 75.70 per cent, with financial literacy only reaching 59.60 per cent. This data shows a wide gap between having access and the ability to use financial services intelligently, especially for rural populations.
Spending Rp 11 trillion without addressing the root causes of literacy and economic empowerment is an inefficient step. Amidst the poverty figures recorded by BPS (20lar 2025) at 23.36 million people (8.25 per cent), public funds would be far more impactful if allocated directly to productive programmes, such as educational scholarships, digital vocational training, or seed capital for new businesses.
Strategic Correction of Public Budgets
Referring to Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach (1999), development should expand the real capabilities of humans to live more decently. The Rp 11 trillion budget must be accountable to ensure value for money. The government needs to immediately revise the design of this programme through four corrective steps:
First, Guarantee an Ecosystem Without Permanent Administration Fees. The waiver of administration fees must be permanent (zero admin fee) for all accounts in this programme. We must ensure that when people begin to save in the future, their money is not eroded by banking system fees.
Second, Optimise the Distribution of Social Assistance and Direct Subsidies. The intention to use these accounts as a gateway for social assistance distribution must be balanced with accurate recipient data to ensure aid is targeted, transparent, and accountable.
Third, Integration with Economic Empowerment. Accounts for social assistance recipients should not stop being mere “intermediary wallets.” Accounts must serve as a path for economic graduation: from being aid recipients, to learning to save, receiving financial literacy training, and eventually being able to access independent business capital.
Fourth, Evaluate Performance Impact. In line with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2020) guidelines regarding policy impact evaluation, the success indicator of the programme must be measured by the level of transaction activity and balance growth (usage and outcome), not merely the number of savings books printed (output).
A nation does not automatically become prosperous simply by successfully distributing tens of millions of savings books using the state budget. Bank accounts only become truly valuable if the people have the cash flow and income levels worthy of being saved within them. We must not let this Rp 11 trillion programme end as mere cosmetics for prosperity statistics, while the economic structure of the grassroots community remains significantly unchanged.