Cheers Global Wallets is proud to be selected as part of the GK Plug and Play accelerator program. Based primarily out of Indonesia, there is a sense of great purpose when the program started here in 2016 with a clear agenda to positively impact the Southeast Asian startup community much like they have with Silicon Valley giants like Dropbox and PayPal becoming household names the world over.

As a part of batch 2 which kicked off January 8th, we are excited to have a significant impact on the way people in the region earn and spend through the digital economy and mobile apps they use on a daily basis, further developing our platform in a way that benefits the region in an important step in our own journey. Much of what we have seen in the fintech space for the region over the past few years have been a band-aid solution to some of the inefficiencies and bloated cost structures of the payment space. Our focus in particular is to take a ground up approach to what the future of payments will be, in a mobile-centric world that is rapidly replacing traditional means of connecting to the internet, like PCs. Fintech in Asia is no cake-walk, and particularly in Indonesia, where giants like Go-Jek and Grab are making serious headway into transforming cashless payments into second-nature for consumers.

But that’s Fintech, ever evolving to adapt to the habits of customers around the world. We see a significant shift in the making, a shift that fades the divide between where people store their money, and where they spend it. Cheers is laser focused on creating an ecosystem that is inclusive of all. This means adopting the unbanked and those in the world who live on less than $10 a day. We feel the right way to achieve this is by being the B2B platform that will become the payment backbone for apps regionally as well as globally. Enabling developers to create money features for their existing users. We imagine a world where poverty is beaten back not just through charities and foundations, but also by genuinely empowering individuals with the tools and ability to earn their way into sustainable income streams.

There are some great startups in this batch of PNP. Far from band-aid solutions, they are focused on impacting change in the lives of the unbanked, impacting the environment, and providing real solutions for real-world problems that are often more obvious in the developing world compared to the developed world. But here’s the great thing… if you can execute and add value in Asia, you can conquer any challenges that come your way when scaling out.

Quoting Wesley Harjono, President Director of Plug and Play Indonesia, “After 3 months of acceleration, these startups will be scheduled to present their business to GK – Plug and Play Expo in front of hundreds of exclusive guests consisting of investors, government, C-Level Executives and the media in April.”

Try out your Bahasa at CNN Indonesia’s press release

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