Singapore’s C88 Financial Technologies, the parent company of Indonesia’s Cek Aja and the Phillipines’ eCompareMo.com, said on Wednesday that it has acquired IDX Optus, an Indonesian information management, credit decision analytics, and data science company.
C88 co-founder and CEO J.P. Ellis said the acqusition was driven by the importance data and analytics in the region’s financial services industry. Multinational credit reporting company Experian is an investor of C88.
“It is highly strategic. We view our successes over the past five years as having been in customer outreach, technical capabilities, and the development of the overall fintech sector. We believe the next five years will be defined by data, analytics, and machine learning capabilities,” Ellis told KrASIA on Wednesday.
C88 declined to disclose financial details related to the acquisition. The company said it expects tremendous growth in revenue in the near future as it provides more financial service in credit analytics and scoring for the retail and small business markets. On average, Ellis said, C88 has seen 200% in annual growth in revenue.
Anton Hariyanto, co-founder and CEO of IDX Optus, characterized his company’s acqusition by C88 as part of a growth and regional expansion strategy. “We have for many years been a leading data analytics provider for Indonesia’s financial services, telecommunications, and retail industries [. . .] We will expand and grow to benefit and help millions of customers in the region access financial services,” Anton said in a press statement.
The operations and staff of IDX Optus will merge with those of C88 and establish a presence in the Philippines by early 2020.