MasterCard sees no fall in credit card use
MasterCard sees no fall in credit card use
JAKARTA (JP): MasterCard International said yesterday that
transactions with credit cards in Indonesia have remained high
despite the monetary crisis.
MasterCard's director for member relations and marketing in
Indonesia Bambang Gunawan said the company had not yet seen any
decline in transaction volume and card applications.
"The number of MasterCard holders in Indonesia increased 40
percent as of November this year, with the transaction volume up
40 percent," he said at a press briefing announcing the winner of
the "Win Your Weight in Gold" lucky draw.
He attributed the sharp rise partly to the draw, conducted by
MasterCard between January and August.
The winner of the draw was a Bank Tamara Gold MasterCard
holder, who will compete with winners from six other Asia-Pacific
countries to win the grand prize -- the winner's weight in gold.
Bambang said MasterCard operates under 22 financial
institutions in Indonesia -- 19 banks and three non-banking
institutions -- and has about 150,000 gold cardholders.
Banks which carry MasterCard include Bank Bali, Bank Lippo,
Bank Danamon, Bank Central Asia and state-owned Bank Negara
Indonesia.
He estimated that over 1.7 million Indonesians have credit
cards, and the number had been rising in line with the country's
prosperity.
Bank Tamara's card center manager Budi Setiawan said his bank
also saw no downfall in the transaction volume of credit cards.
"The transaction volume has increased the last two months due
to the increase in purchases in face of the Christmas and Idul
Fitri holidays," Budi said, declining to give details of the
transaction volume.
Budi said Bank Tamara, which issued Bank Tamara MasterCard in
June last year, had about 16,500 cardholders throughout Indonesia
as of November.
He said about 35 percent were gold card holders and the
remaining 35 percent were classic card holders.
Budi admitted the bank had revised its target of cardholders
due to the monetary crisis.
"We expect that we'll have 23,000 cardholders in July next
year. Our initial target was 25,000," he said.
He said the bank had raised its credit card interest rates to
4 percent since October, from 3.25 percent, to adjust for the
hike in the deposit interest rate.
Besides credit cards, MasterCard International operates cash
and debit cards under the names Maestro and Cirrus.
The company is dedicated to helping more than 23,000 financial
institutions around the world offer consumers a variety of
payment options.
MasterCard has 400 million credit and debit cards which are
accepted at more than 13 million locations worldwide.
The company booked US$550 billion in gross transaction volume
worldwide last year. (gis)