Don't Let P2P Lenders Be Sanctioned Twice

In several previous articles, I discussed the Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU) ruling against 97 online lending providers (pindar) from three different angles: that the sharia label does not confer immunity from Article 5 of Law Number 5 of 1999, that there is disharmony in coordination between OJK and KPPU which touches on the principle of legitimate expectation, and that precision in categorising contracts—namely distinguishing interest from ujrah, margin, or even nisbah—is a prerequisite before the element of price fixing can be declared fulfilled.

Those three notes were retrospective: reading cases that have already occurred. This article attempts to look forward, because there is a new development that has the potential to repeat the same problem, this time from an unexpected direction: from OJK’s own policy.

Ambitious Targets, Instruments on Trial

In implementing the LPBBTI Roadmap 2023-2028, OJK is targeting the share of pindar fund distribution to the productive sector, especially MSMEs, to rise from around 30 percent currently to 70 percent by 2028.

The main instrument is the differentiation of interest rates based on sector and tenor. Productive loans for micro and ultra-micro enterprises are capped at a maximum of 0.275 percent per day for tenors below 6 months and 0.1 percent for tenors above 6 months, while the consumptive sector is subject to higher limits.

At this point I see something that needs to be voiced early, not after it becomes a dispute. OJK is using a single interest rate cap per segment to pursue that 70 percent target figure. All providers in the same segment are subject to an identical maximum ceiling. An instrument that is exactly the same as the one currently being tested for validity at the Commercial Court of the Central Jakarta District Court.

More than 40 pindar have filed objections to KPPU Decision Number 05/KPPU-I/2025, following the mechanism of Supreme Court Regulation Number 3 of 2021. The hearing, according to the AFPI Head of Public Relations in early August 2026, is still at the expert witness examination stage and has not yet reached the decision stage. The main argument of the applicants is simple: their interest rates are uniform not because of an agreement among competitors, but because they are following limits directed by the regulator.

In one courtroom, the state is weighing whether compliance with a single interest rate cap can be read as a cartel. In another policy room, the state has already issued regulations requiring a similar single interest rate cap.

This segmented interest rate structure was first established through OJK Circular Letter Number 19/SEOJK.06/2023, effective from 1 January 2025, and is now continued within the framework of OJK Circular Letter Number 19/SEOJK.06/2025 concerning LPBBTI Operations, a derivative of OJK Regulation Number 40 of 2024 which has been in force since the end of July 2025 replacing the previous regulation.

Two hands of the state, two directions of speech, one and the same market. There is one group that also needs attention here, namely sharia pindar. Of the 97 providers currently in dispute, sharia pindar operate with profit-sharing and margin schemes, not interest. In three previous articles, I have already emphasised that the sharia label does not confer immunity from Article 5.

SEOJK Number 19/SEOJK.06/2025 itself explicitly defines ‘economic benefit’ as the rate of return encompassing interest, margin, and profit-sharing, plus administrative fees, commission fees, platform fees, and ujrah. One umbrella term for schemes that are actually different in contract. That same umbrella has already been used to construct the segmented interest rate structure towards the 70 percent target.

This means that the category confusion which previously dragged sharia pindar into the vortex of the KPPU case has the potential to recur in the next policy chapter, unless OJK affirms that mudharabah nisbah, murabahah margin, and ijarah ujrah must not be treated as equivalent to conventional interest in the segmentation structure already in operation.

If the mindset that ensnared 97 pindar providers is reused without design improvements, the risk does not disappear, it merely changes address. It will grow again in the productive segment, two or three years from now, with different figures but the exact same legal defect. And sharia pindar have a strong chance of being the first parties ensnared again because of the category confusion that has still not been rectified.

Not Rejecting the Policy, But Testing Its Architecture

I want to emphasise that this is not an objection to the policy objective. Encouraging financing to the productive sector and MSMEs is the right agenda, in line with the spirit of financial inclusion and one of the important pillars towards the Adinata Syariah category which has recently become a focus of cross-sector collaboration in the national sharia economy.

Precisely because this agenda is so strategic, it must not stand on a fragile legal architecture. What needs to be tested is not the objective, but the legal architecture behind it: whether this per-segment interest rate cap is designed as a consumer protection fence, or whether it is unwittingly being treated again by business actors as a shared ‘safe number’, as the pattern which the KPPU Panel assessed as leading to uniformity.

The difference lies in one thing that is conceptually simple, yet rarely implemented consistently in the practice of regulating our financial services sector: firmly separating between a maximum limit that is protective in nature and a collective pricing reference. So far that separation has only lived as a spirit, not as a written norm with clear legal consequences.

Momentum to Close the Gap, Not Repeat It

This segmented interest rate structure is already regulated in SEOJK Number 19/SEOJK.06/2025, a direct derivative of POJK Number 40 of 2024. This is not a reason to delay improvement, quite the opposite: because the regulation has been in force for more than a year without a clause separating ceilings from collective references, the correction is increasingly urgent, not increasingly relaxed in timing.

Two windows of opportunity remain open: revision of the provisions already in force, and the legislative process for Law 5/1999 which has not yet been completed, while the lessons from the 97 pindar dispute are sufficiently mature to be used as material for improvement. The following three steps deserve consideration.

First, SEOJK Number 19/SEOJK.06/2025 should ideally be strengthened with an explicit clause that every per-segment interest rate cap is a maximum ceiling, not a reference rate, and industry associations are prohibited from making it a subject of discussion or joint recommendation in any forum. So far such a prohibition has been more of an implicit spirit than an enforceable written norm.

Second, this legislative window is open elsewhere. Law Number 5 of 1999 concerning the Prohibition of Monopolistic Practices and Unfair Business Competition is the parent law of our business competition, the basis for KPPU to assess and punish price-fixing agreements such as the one that ensnared the 97 pindar.

The Third Amendment Bill to that law has entered the Priority National Legislation Programme, with a Working Committee in Commission VI of the Indonesian House of Representatives already formed and Public Hearing Meetings already underway since early 2026.

KPPU itself openly continues to push for this discussion to be completed soon. Because it is not yet finished, this is the momentum to propose an explicit formulation regarding the position of business actors’ actions that merely implement legitimate sectoral regulatory obligations, something known in many other jurisdictions as a form of exemption for state-mandated actions.

This proposal is solely for future policy design, not an assessment of the merits of the case currently being examined by the Commercial Court. Without such a formulation, every single interest rate policy issued by financial sector authorities remains potentially evidence for the next business competition case, even if issued with the good faith of protecting consumers.

Third, specifically for the sharia financing segment that is part of this 70 percent target, all relevant stakeholders need to ensure that the design of future economic benefit limits also includes an obligation to document internal methodology (pricing log) from the outset of the provision being issued, not as a follow-up correction after an alleged violation emerges.

That design also needs to explicitly separate margin, profit-sharing, and ujrah from the meaning of ‘interest’, rather than sheltering them under one umbrella term of economic benefit as applies today. Without that distinction, products born from different contracts will continue to be read by the law as if equivalent, when in essence they are not.

The 70 percent distribution target to the productive sector is a good intention that deserves support. But a good intention wrapped in the same legal instrument as the one currently being tested for validity is not legal certainty, but rather a postponement of risk.

Before that 70 percent figure is achieved, one thing must be ensured first: that pindar who today comply with OJK’s directives are not led for a second time into the same reported position, merely because they followed a policy instrument that has still not been rectified since the first dispute. Wallahu a’lam bishawwab…