A Guide to Money

Money makes the world go around.... well, it certainly does in Indonesia! As you would expect, money here is the same as the world over - there are coins and notes of various values - but there is so much more to learn!

Currency

The Indonesian currency is the Rupiah, with the current exchange rate being 1 US Dollar to 9,000Rp. This is highly variable - even in our time here it has varied from a dollar being worth 7000Rp (when Alex was ripped off buying a computer),to 11000Rp (when I got some good deals buying diamonds). Because of this, things of high value (diving equipment, alcohol, phone bills...) are priced in dollars

Notes and Coins

Forget getting a coin purse in Indonesia, and invest in an extra big wallet. You can only get coins for 25Rp, 50Rp, 100Rp, 500Rp and very occasionally 1000Rp - that is, nothing more than about 7p. Sometimes, you don't even get the coins - when shops run out of change, they simply give you sweets!

Notes are for the bigger denominations, starting from 100Rp (less than 1p) and going all the way up to 100,000Rp or about £7. As 'Delta' and 'Switch' are unheard of out here, most transactions are in cash... hence the need for the large wallet!

Credit Cards

Theoretically, a great alternative to carrying wads of money - just use your card to pay for everything! And indeed you will be, because the shop where you buy from will sneakily copy your card details, and use them to buy whatever they want from wherever they want. And of course, you will only find out the day before you go on holiday to a civilized country, where you will need your card to pay for all the shopping you have planned... Credit card fraud is such a big problem in Indonesia, that when Alex tried to buy contact lenses from the internet, the company had removed 'Indonesia' from it's list of countries available to select for the address field.

Bargaining

Quite often, the price on the ticket is not what you have to pay. Many things have 'Diskon' of 10 or 20%, or else you are expected to bargain. It's often difficult to know how low you can go - up to a quarter of the initial price and sometimes lower is possible - so it is easy to get badly ripped off. But watch out - if you bargain too much, can you be sure that you will get exactly what you asked for, or will something of a lower quality be substituted?

Banking

The company advised us to bank the US Dollars which make up Alex's Indonesian salary in a French bank in Singapore, but we decided to go for the bankrupt Chinese bank - Bank of Central Asia, or affectionately known as BCA. Here, we have a US dollar account, where we can directly withdraw Rupiah from the ATM, or visit the Transfer department (and so bypass the 50 person queue at the tellers) to get US dollars in notes. If you are lucky, you will simply be ripped off as they convert the Dollars from your account into Rupiah, and then back into Dollars to give you as notes. If you are really unlucky, they will forget to reconvert back to Dollars, and you could end up with a wheelbarrow full of Rupiah to take away with you...

It should be noted that I do not have a bank account in Indonesia - everything is in Alex's name, and I have a Letter of Authority, allowing me to withdraw up to $1000 at any one time. And when I needed to transfer $1100? No problem! I just made 2 seperate transfers, one for $1000 and one for $100. In fact, spending 40 minutes having my Letter of Authority renewed yesterday has inspired this page - things detoriorated somewhat during the process when the assistant asked Alex what the application form meant - the form was written in Indonesian, but Alex understood it better than the assistant!

Counting

As you can appreciate in a country where the highest note is worth £7, machines to count notes are essential. Of course, accuracy would be a bonus, however the approach I noticed whilst cashing a cheque, was 'best of three attempts'.

Cost of Living

Everyone will tell you how cheap it is to live in Indonesia, and indeed it can be. A litre of petrol is about 10p, a can of coke is about 20p, and we pay our staff less than £50 per month. However, tubs of Haagen Daz ice-cream cost nearly a fiver, frozen puff pastry is £4 a packet and yoghurts are about £1 each, but I am more than happy to buy them! Expats have been known to tear off price labels from the extortionately priced groceries they have bought, as they are too ashamed to let their maids see them spend a week's salary on a jar of pickle. I did draw the line at paying 600,000Rp (nearly £50) for a bottle of Glenfiddich though...

KKN

Of course, the real value of money is in KKN - or the corruption which is endemic in Indonesia. There are so many examples, I could make a special RWYA - KKN page, but instead I will mention just three cases. The expats who routinely put a $20 note in their passport when going through immigration, to guarantee a safe passage for their dog. The 50,000Rp cash fee (no receipt available) required to process driving licences, payable to someone in 'squeaky clean' Total. The surprise finding that the Indonesian judicial system is riddled with KKN, to the extent that certain judges offer a trial verdict to the highest bidder - prosocutor or defendent.