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Along with products such as instant noodles and cigarettes, she sells insurance and offers a utility bill payment service. Although Julaiha never had a bank account, she can help clients ask for small loans or order products online.
Julaiha, who uses a single name, became last year an agent of Singapore-based Grab, known as Uber of Southeast Asia for his mobile service. Her husband, a motorcycle taxi driver, also works for Grab.
"I used to work hard in a store," said Julaiha. "Now I work at home, I phone the phone and I earn money."
Their recruitment is part of Grab's efforts to expand in Indonesia – the home of rival Go-Jek – as the two companies compete for banking, e-commerce, stimulus, food delivery and more. four corners of Southeast Asia.
The goal is to become the indispensable "super-application" for countries with a population of more than 650 million, the most fiercely contested front now standing out from financial services.
"The majority of people in Southeast Asia do not have a bank account," said Jixun Foo, managing partner of GGV Ventures and one of Grab's leading funders. "It's a huge opportunity."
Land grabbing has attracted billions of dollars of funds from big names.
Grab's sponsors include SoftBank Group Corp <9984.T>, Microsoft Corp
The similarities between companies are striking. The two companies were established at one year intervals as transport service companies: use a taxi booking application in Malaysia, while Go-Jek organized an informal motorcycle taxi sector – a way essential to move in Jakarta, a megacity without metro or epic. traffic jams.
With discounted prices that made their services accessible in low-income countries, they quickly gained millions of users. Both are even led by friends. Go-Jek CEO Nadiem Makarim attended Harvard Business School alongside Grab co-founders Anthony Tan and Tan Hooi Ling.
Grab is the largest regional player, valued at about $ 11 billion in its last funding in August, informed sources said. The valuation of Go-Jek is between $ 9 and $ 10 billion, according to separate sources. Each company is making a new round of financing, the sources said.
The companies refused to publicly disclose the details of the financing and the valuation.
TWO DEALS ON THE WAY OF GRAB
Indonesia accounts for more than a third of Southeast Asia's population and Grab, who said the market was a priority, was aggressive: the acquisition of Kudo start-up and its network of 1 , 7 million agents, which now includes Julaiha.
It has also partnered with fintech OVO, a company owned by the Indonesian conglomerate Lippo Group, whose extensive shopping center assets have helped make OVO's smartphone payment system an omnipresent presence in shopping malls and shopping centers. restaurant chains.
With the help of the OVO, Grab intends to offer "a full range of financial services, including microloans, insurance and savings to Indonesia," said Ruben. Lai, managing director of Grab Financial.
Grab also took a stake in OVO, according to a source directly informed on the subject, which would not have been identified, because this participation has not been announced publicly. Companies declined to comment on the details of the investment.
The Kudo and OVO agreements have allowed Grab to capture Go-Jek's Indonesian market share, although the current national super-application is currently considered by analysts to have a significant advantage .
Go-Jek has 108 million application downloads to date and 50% of Go-Jek users use its Go-Pay payment service, which is the most popular electronic wallet in the country.
OVO, on the other hand, has 60 million downloads, but claims to be the main Indonesian platform in terms of total volume of payments because of the higher amounts paid by the richer customers of the restaurant chains where it is used.
AN EDGE OF THE MAN
Alibaba, of China, is one of the companies looking to take advantage of the new digital economy of Southeast Asia.
The region is big enough for many players to have their share. But Go-Jek and Grab should be hard to beat with the familiarity and confidence built by their auction services and perhaps surprisingly in the digital age, their human agents.
Agents can introduce people with no banking experience – estimated at about two-thirds of the Indonesian population – to financial services, while serving as centers for customers to order and retrieve their online purchases.
Like Grab, Go-Jek is a fan of husband and wife teams who share the roles of driver and agent. Following Grab's initiative, he expanded his agent network last year with the purchase of the Mapan startup. The network includes 180,000 community leaders who lead informal groups that help working-class families buy household appliances and have a customer base of 2 million.
"The housewives told us that they had no credit options and that they could not afford many things," said Aldi Haryopratomo, founder of Mapan and now CEO of Go-Pay Go-Jek unit.
Apart from Indonesia, Grab has the advantage. The largest regional company in the region serving eight markets, it only started on the "super-applications" track last year, but quickly built a range of services.
Grab offers smartphone payment "wallets" in partnership with banks or fintech companies in Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and has one in Thailand. Kudo also extends to the Philippines, Vietnam and Singapore.
Go-Jek also begins to break Grab's ground. Although he does not have the same number of partnerships, he announced this month a merger with DBS Group Holdings
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