Growing with the community

• The team behind 500-backed Mitra Bukalapak has been hard at work helping warung owners digitalize their operations, enabling them to procure goods and sell digital items such as phone credits and data plans, all through an app.
• CEO Howard Gani hopes to now expand Mitra’s financial lineup for warung operators, along with physical and virtual services including paying one’s electricity bills.
• Howard’s goal? Empowering warung owners to propel their communities forward without relying on traditional bank branches. “We believe that the Mitra can effectively be that financial inclusion champion,” he said.
• “Our main objective is really to bring them up to another level, in the hope that we can also impact not just their business, their family, but also the people around them,” he explained.
• So far, Mitra Bukalapak has been helping warung owners 3x their revenue on average. Howard shared that this has been possible because the app offers not only a wide variety of physical products but also virtual products and access to financial products that were previously out of reach.
• Read the full story on Nikkei Asia.