Indonesians made 6.11 billion digital payments in August 2026, 40.36% more than a year earlier, according to Bank Indonesia (BI). Mobile banking volume rose 47.08%. QRIS, the national QR code standard, grew faster still, at 67.22%.
Gambling is banned in Indonesia, online and offline, so none of that volume can legally include it. Regulators know some of it does. In the first half of 2026, PPATK, the country's financial intelligence unit, traced Rp22.05 trillion in online gambling deposits through banks, e-wallets and QRIS. By mid-July, banks had blocked 32,453 accounts linked to gambling.
For a payment provider, the growth and the enforcement arrive together. Fast adoption brings volume. It also brings merchants trying to pass gambling deposits off as ordinary sales.
Indonesia's digital payment market in 2026
BI's digital payment figure covers mobile banking, internet banking and server-based e-money, and it counts transactions rather than their value.
Two pieces of national infrastructure carry much of this traffic. QRIS lets a merchant take payment from any participating bank or wallet app through one QR code. BI-FAST handles instant transfers between banks and processed 549 million retail transactions worth Rp1,346 trillion in August 2026, up 37.72% by volume.
QRIS handled 12.55 billion transactions in the first half of 2026, almost three quarters of BI's 17 billion target for the year. None of these national figures says anything about a single merchant, which a provider still has to assess on its own.
Is gambling legal in Indonesia?
No. Indonesia's new Criminal Code (Law No. 1 of 2023) came into force in January 2026. Article 426 targets anyone who organises gambling, with up to nine years in prison or a fine of up to Rp2 billion. Article 427 targets players, with up to three years or a fine of up to Rp50 million.
Online gambling content is a separate offence under Article 27(2) of the Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law, as amended by Law No. 1 of 2024. The maximum penalty is 10 years in prison or a fine of Rp10 billion.
An offshore gambling licence gives no right to serve Indonesian players. Operators and their payment partners have to weigh the local ban before any integration is discussed.
Payment methods in Indonesia
QRIS
QRIS is Indonesia's national QR payment standard. BI requires every provider offering QR payments to use it, so a merchant registered with one licensed QRIS provider can be paid from any participating bank or wallet app.
The QR code, the customer's app and the funding account are separate parts of a QRIS payment. Calling QRIS an e-wallet mixes up how a merchant accepts payment with where the money comes from, and it skews market-share comparisons: one wallet payment made by scanning a QRIS code shows up in both categories.
Bank transfers and BI-FAST
BI-FAST's August total covers the whole economy and gives no breakdown of gambling deposits. When a merchant settles by transfer, the provider needs to know who controls the receiving account and whether it belongs to the business that signed up. Money going to an unrelated account needs a documented explanation, and records should link the merchant the customer saw to the account that received the funds.
E-wallets in Indonesia
Four digital wallets split the consumer market: ShopeePay, GoPay, DANA and OVO. In Ipsos's 2026 survey, 91% of respondents had used ShopeePay in the previous three months, 67% GoPay, 67% DANA and 44% OVO.
Those figures add up to far more than 100% because most people use several wallets. They are not market shares, and they say nothing about gambling flows. Before integrating a wallet, check which merchant categories it allows and how it links the funding account to the party being paid.
QRIS and detected gambling deposits
PPATK identified Rp22.05 trillion in online gambling deposits in the first half of 2026, spread over 226.76 million transactions. QRIS carried 198.77 million of them: 87.66% of the count and 56.04% of the value, or Rp12.36 trillion.
These shares apply only to deposits PPATK detected as gambling. QRIS does not carry 87.66% of all Indonesian payments.
The gap between count and value means QRIS deposits are smaller on average. PPATK says networks now split payments into smaller amounts sent more often, and one lawmaker cited sites taking QRIS deposits from Rp5,000. First-half turnover still fell 12.9% year on year, to Rp86.82 trillion, while transaction counts rose.
A small payment proves nothing by itself. What matters is whether a run of small payments fits the business the merchant declared.
Account blocking and enforcement
On 14 July 2026, Dian Ediana Rae, head of banking supervision at the Financial Services Authority (OJK), said banks had blocked 32,453 accounts linked to online gambling after enhanced due diligence. Banks had also turned away 2.8 million prospective customers over gambling links.
That figure counts completed blocks. OJK separately reports accounts it has told banks to block, using lists from the Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs (Komdigi). The two describe different stages and should stay apart in reporting.
PPATK suspended transactions on 5,762 accounts holding Rp1.07 trillion in the first half of 2026. In August it announced suspensions on 2,815 more, with balances of Rp325.43 billion, some linked to World Cup betting. Agency figures can overlap, so adding them up risks double-counting.
When a merchant's settlement account is restricted, payouts stop. Providers need a procedure to halt the affected flows and keep the records banks or investigators will request. They should also check whether other merchants settle into the same account.
Compliance risks for payment providers
PPATK says gambling networks use shell companies, fake small-business and digital merchants, and merchant aggregators to make deposits look like normal trade. Each tactic points to a control. Exact legal duties depend on the provider's licence and role.
Merchant activity and settlement ownership
Onboarding should establish what a merchant sells and how customers buy it. The website or app should match the declared business, and expected volumes should make commercial sense. Beyond registration documents, a provider needs to know who owns the business and how it connects to the settlement account. With aggregators, it needs enough information to judge each underlying merchant separately.
Repeated payments across connected accounts
Checking transactions one at a time misses activity spread across many recipients. A sudden jump in payment frequency deserves a closer look when the merchant's stated activity cannot explain it, and incoming payments should be reviewed together with where the money goes next. Ordinary shops also get frequent small payments, so an alert means little until it is checked against what the provider knows about the merchant.
Routing after a compliance refusal
Routing logic has to keep the reason for each refusal. A timeout can be retried. A merchant restriction needs investigating first, and it must be visible to every connected provider. Otherwise an automatic fallback can send the payment to a second acquirer while the first one's concern is still open.
Approval-rate reports should also separate technical failures from compliance refusals, or the refusals disappear into the average.
Crypto-related exposure
OJK took over crypto supervision from the commodity futures regulator Bappebti from 10 January 2025, and by May 2026 had shut down 228 illegal crypto platforms. It has described gambling winnings paid in crypto being cashed out through accounts opened in other people's names and converted to rupiah via payment gateways as if from trade. A counterparty's crypto licence does not make that flow legitimate.
FAQ
Is online gambling legal in Indonesia in 2026?
No. The Criminal Code in force since January 2026 punishes organising and taking part in gambling, and the ITE Law bans distributing gambling content online.
Can QRIS lawfully be used for gambling deposits?
No. BI requires payment providers to drop merchants that use QRIS for gambling.
Does QRIS account for 87.66% of all Indonesian payments?
No. That is its share of gambling deposit transactions PPATK detected in the first half of 2026.
Are blocked accounts and accounts ordered to be blocked the same metric?
No. The 32,453 figure counts completed blocks. OJK's monthly figures count blocking instructions to banks.
Does regulated crypto trading make gambling payments legal?
No. OJK supervision of crypto trading gives no permission to process gambling payments.