The Indonesian wealth tech platform Stockbit is acquiring its partner and local securities firm PT Mahakarya Artha Sekuritas, it announced on Tuesday. The value of the deal was undisclosed.
The Financial Services Authority (OJK) has approved Stockbit’s acquisition proposal, according to a company statement. Upon completion of the deal, PT Mahakarya Artha Sekuritas will be renamed as Stockbit Sekuritas.
Mahakarya has been Stockbit’s broking partner since September after the latter’s relationship with another securities firm Sinarmas Sekuritas — part of Indonesia’s Sinar Mas conglomerate — ended in August.
After the partnership was called off, stock traders using the Stockbit app were redirected to Sinarmas Sekuritas’s own SimInvest app for their trading, while Stockbit returned to providing data on capital markets.
It resumed stock trading services for users only after forging a new partnership with Mahakarya.
Indonesian wealth tech platforms like Stockbit are required to partner with, or acquire, a securities firm if they want to provide stock trading services to their users. Ajaib, which became a unicorn lately, too, had acquired the small local brokerage, PT Primasia Unggul Sekuritas in May 2020, after which it started providing stock trading services.
Megawati Soewardi, CEO of Mahakarya said the acquisition will result in team strengthening to address challenges in the industry. Customers who have previously invested using Mahakarya can still transact as usual and will get more benefits from Stockbit’s technology capabilities, Soewardi added.
Currently, Stockbit has 1 million registered users.
Wellson Lo, co-founder of Stockbit said the main purpose of the Mahakarya acquisition is to increase the technological capabilities of Stockbit and ensure security and privacy to all its users.
“Stockbit wants to contribute to increasing the number of investors in the capital market. To increase the knowledge of investors, we have launched Stockbit Academy to learn stock [trading and investing] from professionals for free,” Lo said in the statement.
