JAKARTA, Investortrust.id — India’s Ambassador to Indonesia Sandeep Chakravorty said Indonesia has a rare opportunity to turbocharge its capital markets by adopting elements of India’s retail-investment playbook, which has brought more than 225 million citizens into the equity market and helped turn India into one of the world’s fastest-growing financial hubs.

Speaking at the Investortrust Capital Market Forum in Jakarta on Thursday, Chakravorty said the shift in India was not a matter of luck. It was the result of aggressive financial-literacy campaigns, digital infrastructure that lowered entry barriers, and a cultural shift that made small, regular investing a nationwide norm. “Everyone has a trading account and a SIP account, from major cities to small towns,” he said. “Our IPOs are oversubscribed many, many times.”

He argued that Indonesia could follow a similar path. With a population of 280 million and a growing middle class, Indonesia has the demographic base to replicate India’s surge. “Large parts of Indonesia’s capital requirements can be met domestically through retail investors,” he said. “The lessons we learn in India are more applicable in Indonesia than lessons from the West.”

Financial Cooperation After Prabowo’s Visit

The ambassador linked today’s forum to a broader strategy set in motion earlier this year after President Prabowo Subianto’s visit to New Delhi, where Indonesia’s investment association signed an MoU with its Indian counterpart. The pact aims to facilitate knowledge transfer and expand cross-border capital-market collaboration.

“We seem to be operating without learning from each other. That needs to change,” Chakravorty said, adding that Vice Finance Minister Thomas Djiwandono’s recent trip to India produced practical insights already being studied by Indonesian agencies and market operators.

UPI–QRIS Integration and Local-Currency Settlement Could Reshape Flows

A major part of that cooperation revolves around payments and settlement systems — the pipes that make markets efficient.

Chakravorty said progress is advancing on linking India’s UPI with Indonesia’s QRIS, which would allow seamless retail payments between the two countries. “Hopefully in the new year we will have integration,” he said, noting that Indians could soon pay in Indonesia using UPI while Indonesians could pay in India using QRIS.

He also pointed to plans for a local-currency settlement (LCS) mechanism between Bank Indonesia and the Reserve Bank of India, the countries central bank, respectively. Once finalized, he said, transaction costs for cross-border trade and financial flows could fall by up to 5%. “It is very difficult to talk to central banks,” he joked, “but they are talking to each other.”

India’s Tech Infrastructure Offers A Template

Chakravorty highlighted India’s digital market architecture — particularly the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) — as a reference Indonesia could adapt. The presence of BSE CEO Sundararaman Ramamurthy at the forum underscored what Chakravorty repeatedly described as India’s technological edge. He joked that Ramamurthy had joined BSE when its share price was US$5. “Now it is almost US$100,” the ambassador said. “I wish I had bought your shares at that time.”

But behind the joke lay a serious point: Indian exchanges, supported by dense digital infrastructure, have enabled frictionless retail participation at national scale. “Technology platforms that BSE has can be suitably utilized,” he said, suggesting Indonesia consider adopting similar frameworks.

He noted that that India’s low-cost digital rails had done much of the heavy lifting in expanding market access.

He stressed that Indonesia’s challenge is not capability but scale. IDX has outperformed several emerging peers this year, but market capitalization and trading volumes remain well below India’s US$5 trillion market. “These two need to change dramatically,” he said, if Indonesia intends to compete for regional and global capital.

A Moment of Opportunity

Chakravorty closed by calling the forum part of a larger shift in India–Indonesia relations, with both governments preparing to revive their Economic and Financial Dialogue early next year. He said the two economies — similar in population size and development trajectory — should not be operating “unmindful of the presence of each other.”

“We are ready to support,” he said. “I hope concrete outcomes come out of today’s interaction.”

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