Perbanas says bank-P2P lending collaboration to drive credit growth
Jakarta (ANTARA) - National banking can expand financing access, particularly for segments that are not optimally served, through collaboration with peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms.
Chair of the Product Development Division of the National Banking Association (Perbanas) Michellina Laksmi Triwardhany said this collaboration enables banks to reach new customers more quickly and efficiently, without having to build the entire infrastructure from scratch.
“There are advantages from P2P lending that can be combined with banks’ capabilities so that banks can provide productive financing. By using P2P lending capabilities, banks can leverage and expand their access,” she stated in her remarks in Jakarta on Wednesday.
According to her, P2P lending can more easily reach the micro or ultramicro segments, which often struggle to access financing from banks.
“There are banks that have succeeded in their business in the micro or ultramicro segments. But such steps always require higher costs and greater human capital,” she said.
From the banking perspective, she continued, this cooperation also opens opportunities for portfolio diversification, ecosystem strengthening, and risk sharing.
“Each bank has a different risk appetite and business approach. Therefore, clear partnership standards are needed as a common reference,” she said.
Those standards, she added, serve as the foundation for the collaboration to run healthily and sustainably.
She further stated that those standards encompass good governance, accountability, transparency, and strong risk management.
Therefore, according to the woman who is familiarly called Dhany, industry associations need to play a role in formulating partnership standards to maintain ecosystem stability.
Based on data from the Perbanas and Aftech White Paper, Indonesia’s credit-to-GDP ratio still lags behind other countries in the region.
For the 2024-2025 period, Indonesia’s credit ratio is recorded at around 36.4%, far below the average for upper-middle-income countries in East Asia and the Pacific, which reaches 74.46%.
Dhany assessed that this condition shows there is still significant room for expansion of formal financing, especially for underbanked segments and small-scale business actors who are not fully served by banks.
On the other hand, the P2P lending industry has recorded the fastest growth in recent years, with an annual growth rate of around 34% in the 2019-2024 period.
“Banks have strengths in terms of capital and lower funding costs. Meanwhile, P2P lending excels in processing speed, digital underwriting technology, and the use of alternative data. This is a complementary combination,” she said.
Dhany mentioned that the bank and P2P lending collaboration model is increasingly developing, such as joint financing, channeling, and banking-as-a-service.
In terms of products, the collaboration also includes white label lending and ecosystem lending, such as invoice financing, supply chain financing, BNPL, and payday loans.
According to her, this variety of models allows banks to remain within the framework of prudence, while expanding the reach of financing to productive sectors that require faster and more flexible processes, but growth must not sacrifice quality.
“The most crucial element in this collaboration is risk management. Without alignment of risk appetite, open communication, and disciplined portfolio quality reviews, the collaboration could become a new source of risk,” she said.
Data in the white paper shows that the portion of outstanding bank credit channelled through P2P lending has increased significantly from around 0.05% of total bank credit through various channels in January 2021 to around 1.30% in April 2025.
“If implemented with strong governance, this collaboration can become an accelerator for financial inclusion while still maintaining banking asset quality,” she said.