DBS hitches a ride with Go-Jek for a super-app

SINGAPORE (Nov 12): Southeast Asia’s largest bank is teaming up with a unicorn. The prize they may have in mind: a super-app like China’s Alipay and WeChat Pay.

Go-Jek Indonesia PT, which started out as a ride-hailing app, has since gone on to capture a much bigger slice of commerce, including food delivery, courier and hairdresser services, and bill payment. As my colleague Shuli Ren wrote recently, Go-Jek has the advantage of a central bank e-money licence in Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s most-populous nation and biggest economy.

So it’s only natural that Go-Jek’s impending expansion into Singapore has made DBS Group Holdings sit up and take notice. The lender, which is aggressively embracing technology in its core operations, wants to hail its own ride with Go-Jek if consumers across Southeast Asia use the startup platform to do more than book transportation.

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