The largest privately owned PT Bank Central Asia Tbk (BCA) allocates Capital expenditure (Capex) of IDR 8.7 trillion (US$ 583.7 million) in 2023 for a new data center infrastructure.
Established in 1957, Sudono Salim (Liem Sioe Liong), a close confidant of former authoritarian Soeharto, founded NV Perseroan Dagang dan Industrie Semarang Knitting Factory. In 1975, the company changed its name to BCA, which focuses on the banking sector and other financial services. By 1980, it expanded its branch network and developed its information technology capacity, by establishing its online system. In 2000, the bank went public. Later in 2001, it took its second IPO. BCA is known to work with well-known institutions such as PT Telkom and Citibank. Currently, the bank owns several subsidiaries, such as:
- BCA Finance Limited (share ownership of 100%)
- PT Asuransi Jiwa BCA (90%)
- PT Asuransi Umum BCA (100%)
- PT Bank BCA Syariah (100%)
- PT Bank Digital BCA (100%)
- PT BCA Finance (100%)
- PT BCA Multi Finance (100%)
- PT BCA Sekuritas (90%)
- PT Central Capital Ventura (100%)
Capex for data centerÂ
BCA’s 2023 Capex of IDR 8.7 trillion is a 40% increase of its 2022 Capex of IDR 5.8 trillion. The company will use the Capex to expand its data center infrastructure. The development of the data center aims to support the rapidly growing volume of transactions and business expansion of BCA’s mobile and internet banking services, said BCA’s Executive Vice President of Corporate Communications & Social Responsibility, Hera F. Haryn.
“We will continue to invest in thousands of EDC (electronic data capture) machines, expansion of opening branch offices, to a number of new Deposit Withdrawal ATM machines which will be spread across many points in Indonesia,” Haryn was quoted as saying by investor.id on January 31, 2023.
She said that the transaction volume in 2022 increased by 36.8% year-on-year (YoY) reaching 24.1 billion transactions. The rising number of transactions is due to the increasing number of customer accounts from originally 6.2 million to 34.7 million.
BCA is also committed to strengthen the standards of security, risk management and liability but also accountability for data protection. The policies were carried out based on the risk appetite of BCA, the development of the cyber threat landscape, and regulations.
“We are always committed to ensuring the presence of a safe and comfortable transaction banking platform. So as to be able to provide the best service for the customer base and the number of transactions that continues to grow,” said Haryn.
BCA is also targeting Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) customers to become part of the bank’s customer account. There are over MRT 20,000 customers. The bank is optimistic it can cooperate with PT MRT Jakarta in collaborating toward a digitalized platform, such as the implementation of the bank as a service (BaaS) in the MRT-J application.
The action is one of the forms of increasing services to access “banking for everyone”. It includes the increasing infrastructure technology for MRT Jakarta as a public transportation operator that become part of the blu ecosystem by BCA Digital.
This cooperation is part of the effort by Blu to increase its digital ecosystem, said BCA Digital President Director Lanny Budiati.
“By integrating Blu banking services into the MRT-J application, customers can easily carry out banking activities anywhere and anytime. Hopefully, by doing so, Blu can become a financial friend for MRT-J users in achieving their financial goals,” she said on January 30, 2023.
BCA believes that the growth of credit in 2023 will continue to grow. This is due to the macroeconomic condition that is more stable and predicted that rupiah will be stronger this year.
Risks in digital banking
However, there is a problem that persists in the digitalized sector. The minimal availability of human resources that are experts in cybersecurity has become a real problem in the industry.
“According to a survey, the world needs 15 million experts for cyber security. Indonesia now needs 1,000 cyber security experts besides officers for various needs of government agencies, industry, banking, telco, and so on,” said Eva Noor, CEO of PT Xynexis International, in her written statement on December 26, 2016.
In a survey by the Indonesian Cyber Research Institute (CISSReC), several banks in Indonesia have a good cyber security rating. With a score ranging from 1-100, the survey result is as below (the higher score means better cyber security rating):
- Bank BTPN 92
- Commonwealth Bank 91
- Maybank 80
- Bank Indonesia (BI) 68
- Bank BTN and Bank BNI 64
- Bank Mandiri 54
- Bank Muamalat 47
CISSReC Chairman Pratama Persadha said that BI in early 2022 had become a target of cyber attacks with a data leak reaching 3.8 terabytes.
“For comparison, the National Cyber and Encryption Agency (BSSN), which was hacked yesterday, had 82 points. So if the points are below 82, I’m sure it will be hackable, it’s very easy to hack,” said Pratama on June 14, 2022.
