JAKARTA, INDONESIA - Media OutReach^[1] - 13 August 2021 - PT Bank Amar Indonesia Tbk^[2] ("Amar Bank"), a technology company with a banking license and Indonesia's first and only pure-play digital bank, announced its achievements at the prestigious Asia Pacific Enterprise Awards (APEA) 2021 for winning the Corporate Excellence Award under the Financial Services Industry category. At the same time, President Director of Amar Bank Vishal Tulsian is also awarded the Master Entrepreneur Award for his tenacity and perseverance in growing and expanding the business. Under Vishal's leadership, Amar Bank has grown its employees from a total of 17 people in 2014 into 1100+ people in 2021; increased interest revenue which grew 86.8% CAGR from USD 1.07 million to USD 45 million in 6 years, and brought home 22 prestigious awards since 2017.

Furthermore, Vishal led a capital raise for Amar Bank in June 2019, with core capital now more than IDR1 trillion, and the banking license upgraded from a BUKU I to BUKU II. Amar Bank then reached profitability within just two years of operation, and in 2020 over USD370 million (IDR5 trillion) in loans were disbursed to more than 400,000 customers (100,000 of which are MSMEs) via digital lending platform Tunaiku. In January 2020, Vishal led Amar Bank's IPO to the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX:AMAR) with 1.2 billion shares released. More recently he led the launch of Indonesia's first cloud-based digital bank (Senyumku) in partnership with Google. Senyumku aims to help people develop positive savings habits and maintain their financial wellness through AI and data analytics.

President Director of Amar Bank, Vishal Tulsian said: "We are deeply humbled and honored for the recognition towards Amar Bank's commitment to improve Indonesian's financial inclusion and revolutionize the banking experience. We started this journey back in 2014 with a belief that technology must improve lives and we built a new business model and this award validates that it is possible to build a successful business model while doing some social good. Though as any award as any validation this makes you very good, what it is more important to recognize is that it is not a one-person job, this is a job of a whole team. So as a representative of the team, I would like to express my gratitude to the whole Amarites for the inspiring ideas and exceptional breakthroughs brought to the table each day. As we look to the future, we will remain agile and flexible in creating innovations to provide financial access and literacy to more people that align with our vision of bringing 200 million smiles to Indonesian faces by 2025."

Despite the national economic downturn following the COVID-19 pandemic, Amar Bank has shown its continued commitment to providing financial services for the underserved and the unbanked. Through the unique AI-led, intelligent digital bank (Senyumku) and lending platform (Tunaiku), Amar Bank eliminates the complicated conventional banking bureaucracy to enable easier and convenient financial access to the customers. Through Tunaiku, more than 400.000 people and SMEs have benefited across Indonesia with more than USD 370 million (IDR5 Trillion) total loan disbursements while the top 3 usage purposes  are for house renovations, business capital and education (all categorized as productive loans).

Amar Bank strives for talent excellence by implementing a semi-startup culture where people are encouraged to break their limits while putting banking fundamentals at the core. A series of progressive learning initiatives across levels of employment are created to nurture a customer-centric and data-driven team. These efforts to bring improvements both to the people, customers, and communities alike strengthens Amar Bank's position in winning the Corporate Excellence Award at the APEA 2021.

APEA is an annual recognition program first held in 2007 that focuses on honoring the entrepreneurial excellence of leaders and businesses in the Asia Pacific. To maintain a fair, and independent evaluation, APEA deployed an extensive primary, secondary, and tertiary audit for each nominee in each category by a panel of judges and industry experts. Using the EAGLE (Enterprise Asia Growth Leadership Excellence) Framework, companies and leaders are assessed against several parameters including organizational capability, talent mobilization, model sustainability, brand stewardship, and corporate agility. Themed "The Great Reset: Towards A Sustainable Recovery", the APEA 2021 Regional Edition aims to foster continuous and sustainable entrepreneurial growth in Asian economies as well as addressing the need for collaboration in tackling the ever-changing business environment.

References

1. ^{^} Media OutReach (www.media-outreach.com)
2. ^{^} PT Bank Amar Indonesia Tbk (amarbank.co.id)