Payments Powerhouses: Joining Hands with Abdul Farid Hamid to Forge a New Chapter in Indonesia’s Inc

In this edition of our Payments Powerhouses series, we converse with Hamid to hear his insights as an entrepreneur, his efforts to enhance financial literacy and promote inclusive finance, and how Mastercard maintains its market relevance and competitiveness amidst Indonesia’s full-throttle push for digital payment transformation.

Abdul Farid Hamid currently serves as the Vice President and Head of Market Development at Mastercard Indonesia. He is primarily responsible for driving growth in core business and service revenues while also striving to establish collaborative relationships with enterprises in the digital economy sector, culminating in mutually beneficial partnership agreements. Before joining Mastercard, Hamid held the position of Regional Director for Western Union’s Pakistan and Afghanistan regions. He also founded his own e-commerce startup and possesses extensive entrepreneurial experience and management consulting expertise in fintech, payments, consumer finance, and e-commerce.

Hamid, welcome to Payments Powerhouses. Could you share with us your career journey and how you arrived at your current position today?

Hamid: I’ve always been passionate about the payments industry. My career began at IBM as a management trainee in their e-commerce division, followed by roles as Head of Card Business at United Bank Pakistan and National Bank of Dubai UAE, gradually expanding my professional domain. As Head of Card Business, my focus was primarily on the consumer market, which gave me profound insights into technology and its applications in payments. At that time, we were transitioning from magnetic stripe cards to chip technology. I witnessed this significant transformation in payment technology firsthand.

Additionally, my work experience across different countries, especially in the UAE, allowed me to interact with diverse consumer groups, giving me deep understanding into consumer concerns and behavior patterns.

Subsequently, I joined Western Union as Regional Director for the Pakistan and Afghanistan markets. Western Union is a global leader in real-time payments and cross-border transactions. For me, it was a new experience transitioning from card payments to real-time payments and handling account-to-account and cash-to-account transfer requests.

This role gave me profound insights into the needs of diaspora populations because it involved how people from one country send money to another country’s populace. I needed to understand the customer requirements for business payments, remittances, or any other form of fund transfers.

After six years with Western Union, I left to start my own company. I founded my e-commerce company—Indus Riviera—based in Canada serving American customers. My partners and I ran five online stores catering to different customer segments. We operated a newly established sunglasses brand Riviera Shades with flagship stores. We were involved in optimizing website operations, checkout and payment experiences, even delving into product design, manufacturing, and digital marketing. This experience taught me a lot about payments, understanding the needs and requirements of small businesses, as well as key players in e-commerce.

Following the outbreak of COVID-19, I decided to sell my company to my partners and joined Mastercard in my current role.

What motivated you to start your own company? As an entrepreneur, what experiences have you accumulated from this venture?

As an entrepreneur, courage, belief, and determination are indispensable.

During entrepreneurship, my biggest takeaway was controlling the burn rate of funds—especially when resources are limited and there’s no clear sight of when breakeven might occur—is crucial. It’s most important to learn resource management while always focusing on the company’s core product.

In the early stages of founding a company, you also need to familiarize yourself with all aspects of business operations because they involve a wide range of issues including human resources management, legal affairs, government regulations, etc.

It was an invaluable learning opportunity that I’m glad to have experienced. We eventually reached breakeven; therefore, I consider this venture successful. However, after nearly four years, I began to miss corporate life. So I decided to leave entrepreneurship behind and return to the workforce.

As Vice President and Head of Market Development at Mastercard Indonesia, what are your job responsibilities?

I thoroughly enjoy my current role. Mastercard used to focus on card business but has now evolved into a diversified company offering various payment solutions and products. I am responsible for expanding payment business operations in Indonesia by adding more payment touchpoints for customers.

In promoting more convenient payment methods, we must innovate simultaneously by introducing new application scenarios and payment processes never seen before on the market. Besides maintaining existing card payment systems, we also manage e-commerce payments, QR code payments, interbank transfers, remittances channels, as well as some emerging new payment systems under development. My goal is to remain competitive both in traditional payment markets as well as emerging ones.

Moreover, I am tasked with driving growth in core services and revenues—our main business pillars—