In order to further its e-commerce goals in a significant market at a time when it is coming under more intense scrutiny in the US and other countries, it is in preliminary discussions with regulators to seek a payments licence in Indonesia. The news comes after TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said in June that the short-form video network would invest billions of dollars in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia.
Indonesia's central bank was in contact with TikTok, which is controlled by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, and expressed interest in the program. An official from TikTok stated that negotiations were ongoing and said that an Indonesian payments license would benefit regional producers and vendors on the platform. If TikTok had a payments license, it could profit from transaction fees and compete more directly with the two largest Southeast Asian e-commerce sites, Sea's Shopee and Alibaba's Lazada.
TikTok boasts 125 million Indonesian users each month, which is comparable to its European user numbers and not too far behind the 150 million users it has in the US. 2020 saw the acquisition of a Chinese payments license by Douyin, the country's answer to TikTok and another ByteDance-owned platform. If TikTok has received a payments license anywhere in the world is not immediately evident.