Bank Lippo offers cellular incentive

JAKARTA (JP): Bank Lippo will cooperate with PT Excelcomindo Pratama, one of the country's cellular telephone operators, to market its credit card service.

Under an agreement signed here yesterday, applicants for Bank Lippo credit cards can get a free cellular phone when their application has been approved by the bank, or buy them at a much lower price than usual.

"Customers could save about Rp 600,000 off the price of a cellular phone," Didik Sunardi, the General Manager of Excelcomindo Product Management, said yesterday.

Approved credit card applicants could get a Motorola D160 for free, a Motorola Startac for Rp 1.59 million, an Ericsson GF388 for Rp 505,000, or a Nokia N8110 for Rp 595,000, he said.

The price includes Exelcomindo SIM GSM-XL service card and a free use of the telephone for a month.

"The Ericsson GF 388, for example, costs Rp 1.09 million on the market," Didik said after the loan signing.

The package is only effective in the Greater Jakarta area, he said.

Excelcomindo is a cellular operator with about 105,000 users in Java and Bali.

Didik said the company expected 10,000 new users a month.

Lippo Card Center Manager's Bambang Sambada said yesterday the bank expected to issue 15,000 credit cards a month.

The alliance would allow Lippo credit card customers to pay their cellular phone bills by credit card, after a year of subscribing the service, he said. (das)