Designing Digital Remittance Options for Home Employees in Indonesia

That is the second in a three-part sequence analyzing a contemporary strategy to digital remittances in Indonesia.

By Angela Ang, Elwyn Panggabean, and Ker Thao

For home staff in Indonesia, remittances present a important technique of assist for his or her households. As we famous in our first weblog, home staff want safe and assured supply of funds when selecting a remittance channel; nonetheless, many find yourself selecting casual and dangerous channels (for instance, via retailers and in money with individuals who journey again dwelling), which might result in theft and fraud. As such, Girls’s World Banking partnered with DANA, certainly one of Indonesia’s largest e-wallet suppliers, to develop a digital remittance answer for home staff to securely ship cash to their households and to extend their engagement with formal monetary providers.

Understanding what’s most essential for home staff and their recipients

To assist within the design and supply of our digital remittance service, we performed in-depth interviews to know the limitations, challenges, and desires of home staff in Indonesia when choosing and utilizing remittance channels and providers. Regardless of their frustrations with present remittance channels and providers (via money, counters, and casual channels), home staff understand these as the one choices out there to them. After we requested home staff what a super remittance service would seem like, they reported a service that’s quick and simple to make use of, dependable, and accessible (each for them and their recipients):

• Quick and simple: Home staff are time-poor and want a service that gives quick and simple transactions, with close by easy-to-access service touchpoints. Moreover, they want a service that makes funds immediately out there for recipients, one that’s straightforward to transact with and requires few steps, and one with shorter processing instances, permitting staff to maximise their free time.
• Dependable: Employees are sending giant lump sums of money dwelling and like a service that may assure supply with low danger of theft and fraud. Some have reported selecting a channel with increased service charges for the sake of sooner, assured supply of their funds as in comparison with cheaper, slower strategies.
• Accessible: As a result of many staff’ households reside in rural and distant areas of Indonesia, a service with accessible touchpoints for cash-out is crucial. A service that’s straightforward for digitally and tech illiterate prospects creates much less problem for the cash-in and cash-out course of.

Key limitations and challenges to digital remittances for home staff

An e-wallet service and platform can present a remittance channel that’s quick and simple, dependable, and accessible for each senders and recipients. Furthermore, it may possibly present prospects with their first formal account within the type of e-wallets and construct their monetary and digital monetary capabilities, permitting them to grow to be advanced and multi-case customers. However to spice up inclusivity within the e-wallet market, we should first handle home staff’ most typical limitations and challenges in utilizing e-money and digital wallets as a remittance channel:

1. Advanced/sophisticated sign-up course of: Employees want help to finish the registration course of, particularly with digital verification procedures equivalent to e-KYC (know your buyer)
2. Lack of entry to web/knowledge: Poor infrastructure in distant areas creates connectivity points or lack thereof, stopping senders and recipients from utilizing e-money and digital wallets
3. Lack of use circumstances/underdeveloped digital ecosystem: The absence of a digital ecosystem in rural and distant areas limits transactions
4. Overwhelming app decisions/interface: Overloaded UX/UI makes navigating an app too sophisticated for digitally illiterate prospects
5. Lack of belief in digital/e-money: Attributable to inexperience (or restricted consciousness) and/or a earlier expertise shedding cash, staff are reluctant to depend on e-money and digital wallets
6. Worry of constructing errors: Digitally illiterate prospects are reluctant to depend on e-money and digital wallets within the occasion they make expensive errors, equivalent to inputing the fallacious account quantity or cash quantity

Designing an answer that works for home staff

As a result of there are not any central and formal aggregators for Indonesia’s home staff, it’s practically not possible to succeed in the home employee inhabitants. As such, we designed and developed a totally digital answer that leverages DANA’s present customers, who’re additionally employers of home staff. DANA customers/employers thus play a key function in introducing DANA as a payroll technique and as a viable, protected, and dependable remittance service for staff.

Aimed toward constructing the digital and monetary capabilities of home staff, DANA’s five-part answer teaches them find out how to use the digital platform to make remittance transfers. First, we construct consciousness amongst employers and home staff of DANA and its account advantages by establishing DANA as an accessible, reliable, and easy-to-use remittance channel. To assist prospects overcome the hurdles of account registration and the difficult KYC verification course of, we enlist employers to help home staff in signing up for DANA Premium accounts. We then present staff with alternatives to be taught and observe find out how to transact with DANA. Cellphone notifications and reminders, along with gamification and different incentives, assist inspire staff to make use of DANA as a remittance service to ship cash dwelling. An outline of the answer elements is as follows:

1. Program pitch and onboarding: Promote this system amongst employers and home staff and construct belief and confidence in DANA as a remittance service by speaking its values and advantages.
2. Transaction tutorials: Present step-by-step visible guides to assist home staff who’re much less tech savvy discover ways to make transactions with their DANA accounts and supply alternatives for them to observe.
3. Key buyer advertising and messaging: Develop advertising supplies for purchasers with messaging that communicates the important thing worth and advantages of utilizing DANA and emphasizes that the service is simple, handy, protected, and safe.
4. Well timed notifications and reminders: Ship notifications and reminders round payday to maintain DANA high of thoughts for purchasers and increase using DANA to ship cash dwelling.
5. Gamification and incentives: Use gamification to assist prospects ship remittances and full different transactions on DANA’s e-wallet platform and supply related incentives and rewards to inspire prospects who efficiently attain milestones.

Piloting the answer and subsequent steps

In September 2021, we launched a three-month check pilot of the answer, out there to all of DANA’s KYC and non-KYC prospects. With this program pilot, we hope to know:

• How properly did the answer attain home prospects, and what number of staff had entry to the answer (obtained promotional, advertising, and related program supplies and communications)?
• What number of ladies home staff accessed the answer total and began utilizing DANA’s remittance providers to ship a reimbursement dwelling?

Primarily based on the outcomes and learnings of the pilot, we are going to iterate and modify the answer as wanted earlier than rolling-out to DANA’s total buyer base. In Half 3 of this weblog sequence, we are going to share our learnings from this system pilot, in addition to our suggestions to successfully design and attain home migrant staff with a digital remittance answer.