OVO
“Can OVO, as Grab's Indonesian wallet arm, defend and expand share in a QRIS-commoditized e-money market by becoming the embedded payment rail for Indonesian platforms?”
Founded2017
HQJakarta, Indonesia
FoundersLippo Group
IndustryFintech / E-wallet
The story
Founded by Lippo Group in 2017 as an e-money wallet to compete with GoPay and Dana in Indonesia's exploding digital payments market. Became a unicorn in 2019 on the back of Grab/Tokopedia integration deals, and Grab eventually consolidated ownership to ~90%. Now operates as a full Bank Indonesia-licensed payment service provider (Category 1) — running its own acquiring rails for merchants, SNAP Open API for partners, and direct-debit/QRIS infrastructure rather than relying on third-party BaaS.
Last 12 months
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Product timeline
2017
OVO launched as digital wallet by Lippo Group with Bank Indonesia e-money license· launch
2017
Tokyo Century Corporation invests in OVO· funding
2019
OVO becomes Indonesia's first fintech unicorn and top digital payment service· milestone
2022
Grab acquires majority ownership (~90%)· acquisition
Regulated entities
E-money license (Payment Service Provider Category 1)
Indonesia (Bank Indonesia) · 2017
PT Visionet Internasional
The stack
Payments / PSP
Banking / BaaS
Accounting gap: significant