Jayapura – Bank Indonesia has increased the number of banks implementing the QRIS Sembako program. The QRIS Sembako program was previously implemented in 2023 by involving four implementing banks.
“This year we added two banks, so a total of six banks will implement this program,” said Head of the Payment System Policy Implementation Team of Bank Indonesia Papua, Rama Kharismawan Purnama Putra in a Media Talk in Jayapura, Wednesday (21/8/2024).
The six banks are Bank Papua, BRI, BNI, Bank Mandiri, BTN and BSI. Rama said the kick off of QRIS Sembako was held on August 16 and will last until October 15, 2024.
According to him, this program applies in the working area of the Papua Representative Office of Bank Indonesia (Papua Mountains, Central Papua and South Papua).
Rama explained, through the QRIS Sembako program, people or customers who have just used QRIS transactions or activated mobile banking are entitled to get a basic food package worth Rp30 thousand.
“The basic food package will be given by the bank where the customer makes the transaction, then the basic food costs are billed to Bank Indonesia,” he said.
On this occasion, Rama revealed, until July 2024, the volume of QRIS transactions in Papua was recorded at 8,018,990 or an increase of 275 percent from this year’s target. New users amounted to 7,349 or 62 percent of the target. Total QRIS users are 207,675. The number of QRIS merchants in Papua has reached 203,310.
“The data reflects the potential for QRIS expansion in Papua is still very large, including the new autonomous regions (DOB) whose access to digital transactions is still low due to network and security constraints,” he said.
With this positive program, Bank Indonesia is committed to continuing to educate the Papuan people about the importance of using non-cash transactions to increase financial inclusion in the Papua region.