Marshall Pribadi PrivyID Danamon Entrepreneur Awards Winner

Article / 12 February 2018

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Creative business can be build from many things, even from something you haven’t think before. You need a creative mind to see opportunity and chance to build your own creative business. That capability is shown by Marshall Pribadi, the man who build his own creative business.

Marshall business idea comes when he realized that in the midst of technological advancement era, almost all companies move to digital. If few years ago the use of digital document is very rare, now almost all companies are moving from paper to digital document. Indonesian government also support the use of digital document for government and private companies with Undang-undang Informasi dan Transaksi Elektronik (UU ITE) in 2008.

Digital document is the conversion from physical thing (hard copy) to digital (soft copy). Even though the use of digital document has many support, actually there are some problems exist. One of them is the digital signature scam and crime.

This problem encourages Marshall to have an idea to build a startup called PrivyID. Their main problem is to prevent digital signature crime. Now his business has become the only authorized electronic certificate service provider in Indonesia, with their main product is digital signature that is legal in law.

Not only that, Marshall Pribadi and his PrivyID team has won Danamon Entrepreneur Awards 2017 in most promising fintech category. Danamon team has a privilege to talk with this PrivyID CEO and Co-Founder. In this opportunity, Marshall told us his long story to build PrivyID from zero until now.

Q: Tell us how you get the idea to create this business?

A: I have founded startup called PrivyDoc before. We want to make sure people will not fill documents multiple times. However, it doesn’t take off.

We then realized all banks concern with consumer on boarding. They want every person can be their customer without even going to bank branch, without even meet, without ay agent. They want customer just use their own smartphone, with their digital signature. We believe the key will be the digital signature.

Q: How’s the process? Have you meet any obstacles?

A: People was saying: “What do you mean by digital signature?”. Now, when we were published by Forbes, Kompas, and everywhere, people said, “this person is very lousy, they do unimportant job but they make it to this media.”

People think, digital signature means we write in the screen, iPad, or smartphone with finger or stylus. Then, they said, “where’s your innovation? What’s actually do you do? We can also create similar application.”

So, until today, customer education is really tough, we need to educate them that digital signature is not legal that way. If we look at point 11 in UU ITE, the requirements for digital signature is very complicated, cannot be fulfilled with those simple writing in your screen.

Q: So, what’s PrivyID is actually deliver? 

A: Each digital document must have their own certificate. If digital document has no certificate, then actually someone can deny their legality in the court, saying, “Mr Judge, that is not my digital signature.”

So, we need an entity, trusted third party called CA, certificate authority. In this digital signature business, PrivyID act as CA. So we publish that certificate. It makes the digital signature cannot be change and is authorized by legal in the court.

Q: What do you do in this business? 

A: There are two business units in PrivyID. The first one is the CA and the second one is electronic signature provider.

The electronic signature provider works this way. We sign, then we put that signature to document, we provide engine to do just that, until the document already digitally signed. That’s what we call electronic signature provider. Until now, we are the only provider who listed in the Kementrian Komunikasi dan Informatika.

Q: If we already use digital signange, is it always safe from crimes? 

A: It doesn’t work that way. Our law doesn’t say that, ”digital signature must use cryptography to be 100% safe”. Not that way.

Law says, if in the certain amount of time, the digital signature must be safe enough to be really hard to crack without special tools. If you ask whether great hacker can hack them or not, of course it is hackable. But the real question is: how hard it be?

Q: Why do you think of this idea? To provide digital signature? 

A: here are so many fake signature cases, and all of them pass the eye test. So, the professional forgery, someone who fake signature, is really good so that even forensic staff cannot identify which signature is real or not. Some of the professional forgeries are already using machine to do their job.

So the one who sign the document is actually machine, not an actual hand. The signature is really similar, its thickness, pen tilts, everything is similar. Even forensic staff is pretty much “art”, cannot really 100% guarantee that certain signature is real or not.
Imagine if it’s hard to identify using paper, it means if we sign using iPad or iPhone screen, the forensic staff will have really hard time to identify who actually sign the document. It is too dangerous.

Q: Can you tell us the prospect of this digital signature business?  

A: Actually, our business is not only about signature. That’s why our name is PrivyID, not PrivySign or PrivyDoc. Because what actually matters is the identity itself.
Identity is really important. Have you realized how many times you need to fill your name, address, date of birth, your mom’s maiden name, and so on just to open bank account? And when you want to open another bank account, you need to go through the same painful process. Not only bank account, but also in any services that need your identity such as insurance, credit card, hospital, and many more.
Why we need to do that? Why we don’t have single universal identity that can be accepted in many merchants? Now, we build the ecosystem in Busan Auto Finance, Kredit Plus, Telkom, and many others. Slowly but sure, customer who already have their PrivyID account just need to login to use those services, they don’t have to fill up crazy amount of personal information again. After that, you can also sign them online. That’s the goal.

Q: What do you see PrivyID in the future? 

A: There are two goals. First one is about government. Mr. Jokowi always says, digital economy. I believe digital economy foundations are two. One, is the single universal identity that we can use online in any platforms, and the second one is digital signature that is authorized and legal in the court.
The second goal, Indonesia has a goal to reduce carbon emission (CO2). Indonesia has big commitment to united nation, from carbon emission to forest safety. If all papers, whether in government or private sector is gone, how much CO2 we can reduce?
Then, the emission needed by courier to send the paper contract, can be eliminated by sending them online. Indonesia can proudly say to international world, that it is our commitment to cut carbon emission. We eliminate papers, we eliminate courier. 

For you who inspired by Marshall Pribadi story to build PrivyID and win Danamon Entrepreneur Awards 2018 as most promising fintech, you can also start your own creative business. If Marshall is able to success with his simple idea, why you can’t? To help your business, you can also use Danamon Solusi UKM. Are you ready to build your own business and starts to take control?