Telkom, banks sign deal

JAKARTA (JP): Telephone subscribers are now able to pay their monthly phone bills from the state-owned PT Telkom through any Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) operated by six leading banks.

Company president Asman A. Nasution said yesterday the payment system was based on "host-to-host" computer networks which transfer subscribers' bills to the banks including Bank Internasional Indonesia, Bank Bali, Bank Niaga, BDNI, Bank Papan Sejahtera and Bank Exim.

"We guarantee that there will be no information leakage about the subscribers' data," he said.

He said that information technology provider PT Lintas Arta was involved in the controlling system.

Telkom previously introduced a noncash billing payment system through credit card auto-debit, tele credit cards and ATMs with three banks including Bank Duta, BII and BCA.

"Payment through BCA's ATMs is operated off-line, meaning that there's no transparent data information. But the new service with the six banks is operated online," Nasution said.

He said the new service was offered in collaboration with just six banks as other banks did not yet have adequate computerized systems.

The new payment system allows Telkom users to pay from any ATM of the six banks throughout the country, he added.

Other banks including Danamon, Citibank, Lippo, Modern, Kharisma, Universal and Jaya had proposed to cooperate with Telkom for the same service, he added.

Telkom also launched yesterday phone banking, a service allowing subscribers to pay their bills through a phone call to the company which will then debit the subscribers' bank account. (icn)