Fintech Trends 2024: Paylater Users Rise

The use of financial technology (fintech) applications is becoming more widespread. In addition to functioning as a means of payment, fintech can also be used for various financial activities.

Jakpat conducted a survey to find out the behavior and habits of Indonesia fintech users in the first half of 2024. The report, which involved 2159 respondents, focused on digital payment types, namely e-wallets, banking platforms (mobile/internet and digital), and buy now pay later (BNPL) commonly known as paylater. Other topics discussed are the types of fintech, namely e-wallets, paylater, online loans (pinjol), crowdfunding, and peer-to-peer (P2P) lending. 

Digital financial activities

In the first semester of 2024, as many as 93% of respondents made digital payments. In more detail, almost all respondents use e-wallets (97%) as digital payment methods, followed by banking platforms (49%), and paylater (33%). E-wallets are fintech that dominates payments, both directly (offline) and online.

Compared to last semester, or the second half of 2023, the use of digital payments in these three categories has increased. Namely e-wallets by 75%, banking platforms (45%), and paylater (25%).

“We see a significant surge in people’s activities that switch to digital payments. This is due to the increasingly easy use of fintech, where people now prioritize convenience and comfort (user-friendly). This change shows that the public is increasingly open to digital financial technology,” said Jakpat Lead Researcher, Farida Hasna.

Other financial activities that are also carried out, both digitally and conventionally, are saving (34%), paying credit (29%), investing (20%), and insurance (20%).

Use of fintech

In general, there are various considerations in choosing a fintech platform. Some of them are easy payment methods (62%), user-friendly applications (55%), and registered with the Financial Services Authority/OJK (45%).

Almost all respondents use e-wallet applications (96%), followed by paylater (31%) and online loans that provide cash loans (8%). Then, 97% of respondents use mobile/internet banking platforms, and 77% use digital banking platforms.

As many as 69% of respondents admitted to using e-wallets for money transfers. Some use this digital wallet as a means of payment when shopping online (67%) and paying bills (66%). More than 40% of respondents use this application 1-3 times a week.

Regarding credit fintech platforms, 4 out of 5 people stated that they use online loans because the funds are quickly disbursed. In addition, the process is fast (78%), and the requirements are easy (74%) when applying for a loan. Three out of 4 respondents use the loan funds for urgent needs, some use them for daily needs (45%), pay bills (40%), and entertainment needs (17%).

Seeing this, Hasna assessed that pinjol has become one of the multifunctional solutions in managing people’s finances today.

“The majority of people use loans for urgent needs, but not a few, especially Generation Z, use them for tertiary needs such as buying concert tickets. The fast process and easy requirements when registering are also the main pulling factors,” she explained.

More than 80% of respondents stated that they use banking applications, both mobile/internet and/or digital because they save time (87%) and services are available 24 hours a day (82%).