Bumiputera pins hopes on consumer lending

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Fri, 11/24/2006 12:31 PM | Business

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Having benefited from rapid growth in consumer lending, publicly listed Bank Bumiputera is setting its sights on becoming a top-rank bank in the consumer and retail markets in the years to come.

""The bank's performance in the third quarter (of this year) has proven that we are poised to become one of the leading banks for the consumer and retail markets by 2009,"" president director Ghazali Mohd Rasad said during a briefing Thursday.

As of Sept. 30, Bumiputera's total loan portfolio had grown by 43.55 percent to Rp 3.7 trillion (US$411 million) from Rp 2.6 trillion a year earlier, thanks to a 81.08 percent rise in consumer loans, which stood at Rp 2.4 trillion compared with the Rp 1.3 trillion booked in the corresponding period last year.

Ghazali said that next year the bank's loan portfolio would be 70 percent consumer loans, 20 percent small- and-medium-enterprise (SME) loans and 10 percent commercial loans. At present, the bank's loan portfolio is 65 percent consumer loans, 24 percent SME loans and 11 percent commercial loans.

Bumiputera recorded a 56.6 percent increase in before-tax profit to Rp 7.23 billion compared to Rp 4.61 billion for the same period in 2005.

According to the bank's third-quarter report, its loan-to-deposit ratio (LDR) stood at 92.28 percent, a 76.64 percent jump from the same period last year, while its non-performing-loans (NPL) ratio decreased to 4.89 percent from 4.96 percent.

Bumiputera is 67.07 percent owned by Malaysian investor Tun Daim Zainuddin. The other shareholders are insurer AJB Bumiputera 1912 (5.98 percent) and retail investors (26.95 percent).(09)

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