OVO (payment)


OVO is a digital payment service based in Jakarta, Indonesia. It is a digital platform for simple payment and smart financial services, with affiliated merchants, business partners and members in its ecosystem. OVO is the leading digital payment service in Indonesia based on transaction value.
It is a unicorn, which was valued about $2.9 billion as of October 2019. OVO is the fifth unicorn in Indonesia after ride-hailing company Gojek, travel service firm Traveloka and two e-commerce companies Bukalapak and Tokopedia. OVO is part of Lippo Group, which has partnerships with Grab and e-commerce platform Tokopedia.

History

OVO's journey began back in 2016 as an app that offered payments, loyalty points and financial services backed by Lippo Group's digital arm. OVO received permission to operate as a fintech company throughout Indonesia on 25 September 2017.
In December 2017, it was announced that Tokyo Century Corporation had invested US$116 million for a 20% stake in the startup. In March 2019, several media reports announced that Indonesian e-commerce giant Tokopedia has invested in OVO. This comes after Tokopedia and OVO announced a partnership in October 2018 that saw OVO’s e-wallet service replacing TokoCash on Tokopedia’s platform. Ovo expanded into offline stores in early 2019. As of March 2019, over 110 million people used Ovo, spread across 300 Indonesian cities. Ovo has also reportedly acquired a local peer-to-peer lending company Taralite in early 2019.
During Indonesia Digital Conference 2019, Mochtar Riady announced Lippo Group has sold two-third of OVO stock owned by Lippo Group to Softbank Group, this decision result in Lippo Group only own around 30% of OVO stock.