Bitcoin Met Officials of Bank of Indonesia

Screenshot of Bitcoin Indonesia's website

JAKARTA (Indotelko) – Bitcoin Indonesia has not given up to make their virtual currency acceptable in Indonesia, specially by Indonesia’s financial regulators.

Founders of Bitcoin Indonesia has met officials from Department of Payment System Bank of Indonesia to discuss about Bitcoin virtual currency.

“It’s just a usual discussion with Department of Payment Systems at Bank Indonesia. Not a formal meeting but considered as closed discussion. Mostly talks about progress of Bitcoin since it first launch in Indonesia,”  Founder of Bitcoin Indonesia, Oscar Darmawan said.

He said, discussion with financial regulators in Indonesia is needed in order to get complete information related to Bitcoin’s adoption in Indonesia since they see Bitcoin increasement everyday, especially in trading volume level increase.

According to Oscar, one of the possibilities for using Bitcoin without breaking the existing rules is to use it as a transfer tools, while the transactions keep using rupiah.

“It’s only an idea. We still have to wait a decision from Bank of Indonesia,” he said.

Regarding the need of formal certification from Ministry of Communications and Information Technology for Bitcoin’s hardware, Oscar said no certificate needed for Bitcoin because the product is considered as Open Source.

“There are no regulation yet but we’re ready to discuss this with ministry or government, if they ever need any explanation,” Oscar added.

Central Bank of Indonesia not recommend Bitcoin to be used by community. According to Deputy Governor Ronald Waas, digital currency like bitcoin did not meet any criteria of any regulations that exist in Indonesia.

Waas listed three particular laws that he urges bitcoiners to consider before they utilize it in Jakarta. There are Bank Indonesia Law, Information and Electronic Transactions (ITE) and various currency legislation.

“We can see every regulations in Indonesia that related to payment  system. First, rule no.7 year 2011 which set payment method in Indonesia. It said, payment system or every transactions in Indonesia must use Rupiah. Is Bitcoin considered as Rupiah?” Waas said.

“We also have law that regulates Information and Electronic Transactions, which control every public services that involving technology in it. It said, every equipment used by the services should be certified by the Ministry of Communication,” he continue. Last regulation, Waas said, is about currency. It clearly said that rupiah is the only legal tender. The central bank authority conceded that it has no regulations in place to prohibit the utilization of bitcoin.

This is why Waas is strongly advising citizens to not use the digital currency as a method of payment for transactions. Waas says risk is the primary concern because no one can guarantee the security of transactions.

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