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Opening Indonesia’s digital economy to rural women
Articles Steward Leadership

Opening Indonesia’s digital economy to rural women

Indonesia

Amartha combines group lending, field support and digital finance to reach 3.91 million women entrepreneurs, helping businesses grow, create jobs and build financial resilience across rural Indonesia.

#SL25 #stewardLeadership
Andi Taufan Garuda Putra Verified

Andi Taufan Garuda Putra

Founder and CEO @ Amartha Financial

See profile
Posted 30/09/2026
Challenge

For women running small businesses in rural Indonesia, banks can be distant in more ways than one. Many entrepreneurs lack collateral, a formal credit history or reliable financial services, despite the vital role they play in supporting household livelihoods and local economies. Without affordable capital, a sudden expense can become a long-term financial crisis, while a promising livelihood may never grow into a larger business.

 

Digital finance offers a way across that divide, but technology alone does not create trust. In communities with limited experience of formal banking, adoption depends on human relationships, practical financial knowledge, and products suited to grassroots businesses.

 

Amartha set out to solve both problems at once: expanding access to finance without leaving behind the community ties on which rural entrepreneurs rely.

 

Opening Indonesia’s digital economy to rural women

 

 

Solution

Amartha starts with something familiar: community. Its group loans bring together 10 to 15 women who share responsibility for repayment, replacing conventional collateral with social trust. Field officers reinforce that trust through regular meetings, borrower support and financial and digital literacy training.

 

Around this foundation, Amartha has built a wider digital ecosystem. AmarthaLink uses local agents to bring financial services into underserved areas. Poket gives borrowers a digital wallet for repayments, transfers, investments and everyday transactions, while Modal offers selected groups faster, flexible and recurring working-capital loans. Through its wider integrated ecosystem, AmarthaFin, the company connects lending, payments, and investment services tailored for grassroots Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), onboarding over 1.25 million borrowers in 2025 alone.

 

Cashless transactions do more than save time. They create a financial history that helps Amartha understand a business’s performance and risk, allowing capital to be matched more closely to its needs. AI-enabled alternative data also helps assess entrepreneurs who lack conventional credit records.

 

Funded by institutional partners and retail investors, the model has scaled with the businesses it serves.

 

 

By 2025, Amartha reported that disbursements had exceeded IDR46 trillion, reaching 3.91 million women borrowers.

 

Impact

Behind those numbers are businesses crossing important thresholds. Amartha reports that its loans enabled 98,224 borrowers to hire their first employee, creating 94,837 first jobs for women. Another 13,548 businesses grew from micro to small enterprises.

 

Its research also points to stronger businesses and households. Between 2024 and 2025, the share of borrowers classified as economically empowered rose from 75 to 92 per cent. Those reporting more customers increased from 71 to 95 per cent, while 91 per cent were separating business and household cash flows by 2025. Amartha also reports that 94 per cent of borrowers increased their annual income.

 

This reach rests on both screens and people. Across 1,776 operational points, 7,373 field officers connect Amartha’s services to grassroots communities, while digital financial literacy initiatives have reached more than 983,000 borrowers.

 

The result is not finance delivered from a distance, but a bridge between community trust and digital opportunity – helping rural women build records, manage money and create work for others.

 

 

Future outlook

By 2030, Amartha aims to serve 10 million entrepreneurs, enable IDR50 trillion in annual lending and generate IDR10 trillion in revenue, while maintaining a non-performing loan rate below three per cent.

 

Its longer-term task is to grow without weakening the relationships that make the model work. Alongside expanding its digital ecosystem, Amartha plans to deepen financial literacy and use climate research to shape services for rural entrepreneurs facing environmental risks.

 

Its test will be to scale without losing the trust that made the model work: pairing faster digital access with transparent terms, fair treatment and safeguards against over-indebtedness. The ambition is shared prosperity built from the grassroots up.

 

Amartha Financial (PT Amartha Financial Group and its subsidiaries), known as Amartha, is a digital financial services group serving women-led MSMEs across more than 50,000 villages in Indonesia. Through the AmarthaFin mobile app, users can access working capital financing, digital payments, bill payment services (PPOB), zakat distribution, and investment features. Amartha Financial comprises PT Amartha Mikro Fintek and PT Amartha Warbler Finance, both licensed and supervised by Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority (OJK), as well as PT Amartha Finansial Asia, a licensed electronic money provider supervised by Bank Indonesia. To date, Amartha Financial has disbursed more than IDR 46 trillion in working capital to over 3.9 million women-led MSMEs, supporting micro-entrepreneurship, job creation, and inclusive economic growth across Indonesia.

Explore Topic

Equality Climate Change Governance Sustainability Steward Leadership

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The SL25 partners - Steward Leadership Institute, the INSEAD Hoffmann Institute, WTW and The Straits Times - are not responsible for the statements and opinions expressed by the organisations behind the SL25 projects. These organisations are responsible for the truthfulness, accuracy and completeness of their content in their applications as well as those presented on this site, which are not guaranteed by the SL25 partners. All information on this site reflects the submissions received as of 15 Apr 2026, the closing application date for SL25. Inclusion to the SL25 list is based on the particular project(s) described in the application form. SL25 is not intended as a blanket endorsement of the organisation as a whole.

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Articles Steward Leadership

Opening Indonesia’s digital economy to rural women

Indonesia

Amartha combines group lending, field support and digital finance to reach 3.91 million women entrepreneurs, helping businesses grow, create jobs and build financial resilience across rural Indonesia.

#SL25 #stewardLeadership
Andi Taufan Garuda Putra Verified

Andi Taufan Garuda Putra

Founder and CEO @ Amartha Financial

See profile
Posted 30/09/2026
Challenge

For women running small businesses in rural Indonesia, banks can be distant in more ways than one. Many entrepreneurs lack collateral, a formal credit history or reliable financial services, despite the vital role they play in supporting household livelihoods and local economies. Without affordable capital, a sudden expense can become a long-term financial crisis, while a promising livelihood may never grow into a larger business.

 

Digital finance offers a way across that divide, but technology alone does not create trust. In communities with limited experience of formal banking, adoption depends on human relationships, practical financial knowledge, and products suited to grassroots businesses.

 

Amartha set out to solve both problems at once: expanding access to finance without leaving behind the community ties on which rural entrepreneurs rely.

 

Opening Indonesia’s digital economy to rural women

 

 

Solution

Amartha starts with something familiar: community. Its group loans bring together 10 to 15 women who share responsibility for repayment, replacing conventional collateral with social trust. Field officers reinforce that trust through regular meetings, borrower support and financial and digital literacy training.

 

Around this foundation, Amartha has built a wider digital ecosystem. AmarthaLink uses local agents to bring financial services into underserved areas. Poket gives borrowers a digital wallet for repayments, transfers, investments and everyday transactions, while Modal offers selected groups faster, flexible and recurring working-capital loans. Through its wider integrated ecosystem, AmarthaFin, the company connects lending, payments, and investment services tailored for grassroots Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), onboarding over 1.25 million borrowers in 2025 alone.

 

Cashless transactions do more than save time. They create a financial history that helps Amartha understand a business’s performance and risk, allowing capital to be matched more closely to its needs. AI-enabled alternative data also helps assess entrepreneurs who lack conventional credit records.

 

Funded by institutional partners and retail investors, the model has scaled with the businesses it serves.

 

 

By 2025, Amartha reported that disbursements had exceeded IDR46 trillion, reaching 3.91 million women borrowers.

 

Impact

Behind those numbers are businesses crossing important thresholds. Amartha reports that its loans enabled 98,224 borrowers to hire their first employee, creating 94,837 first jobs for women. Another 13,548 businesses grew from micro to small enterprises.

 

Its research also points to stronger businesses and households. Between 2024 and 2025, the share of borrowers classified as economically empowered rose from 75 to 92 per cent. Those reporting more customers increased from 71 to 95 per cent, while 91 per cent were separating business and household cash flows by 2025. Amartha also reports that 94 per cent of borrowers increased their annual income.

 

This reach rests on both screens and people. Across 1,776 operational points, 7,373 field officers connect Amartha’s services to grassroots communities, while digital financial literacy initiatives have reached more than 983,000 borrowers.

 

The result is not finance delivered from a distance, but a bridge between community trust and digital opportunity – helping rural women build records, manage money and create work for others.

 

 

Future outlook

By 2030, Amartha aims to serve 10 million entrepreneurs, enable IDR50 trillion in annual lending and generate IDR10 trillion in revenue, while maintaining a non-performing loan rate below three per cent.

 

Its longer-term task is to grow without weakening the relationships that make the model work. Alongside expanding its digital ecosystem, Amartha plans to deepen financial literacy and use climate research to shape services for rural entrepreneurs facing environmental risks.

 

Its test will be to scale without losing the trust that made the model work: pairing faster digital access with transparent terms, fair treatment and safeguards against over-indebtedness. The ambition is shared prosperity built from the grassroots up.

 

Connect

Amartha Financial (PT Amartha Financial Group and its subsidiaries), known as Amartha, is a digital financial services group serving women-led MSMEs across more than 50,000 villages in Indonesia. Through the AmarthaFin mobile app, users can access working capital financing, digital payments, bill payment services (PPOB), zakat distribution, and investment features. Amartha Financial comprises PT Amartha Mikro Fintek and PT Amartha Warbler Finance, both licensed and supervised by Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority (OJK), as well as PT Amartha Finansial Asia, a licensed electronic money provider supervised by Bank Indonesia. To date, Amartha Financial has disbursed more than IDR 46 trillion in working capital to over 3.9 million women-led MSMEs, supporting micro-entrepreneurship, job creation, and inclusive economic growth across Indonesia.

Explore Topic

Equality Climate Change Governance Sustainability Steward Leadership

Want to leave a comment? Sign up or log in.

The SL25 partners - Steward Leadership Institute, the INSEAD Hoffmann Institute, WTW and The Straits Times - are not responsible for the statements and opinions expressed by the organisations behind the SL25 projects. These organisations are responsible for the truthfulness, accuracy and completeness of their content in their applications as well as those presented on this site, which are not guaranteed by the SL25 partners. All information on this site reflects the submissions received as of 15 Apr 2026, the closing application date for SL25. Inclusion to the SL25 list is based on the particular project(s) described in the application form. SL25 is not intended as a blanket endorsement of the organisation as a whole.

Have a perspective worth sharing?

Submit an idea, propose a course, or start a conversation that moves the field forward.

Submit an Idea Join the Commons