Bank Mega, publicly listed medium-sized lender, targets its bank lending to grow next year by up to 20 percent despite the forecast slowdown resulting from the global financial crisis.

"We predict that credit growth in the first semester will be badly affected by the global economic downturn, but we will see improvement in the second," president director Yungky Setiawan said on Friday.

According to Yungky, the bank will continue to focus on providing lending for small to medium enterprises which have contributed most to its growth in lending.

As of the end of September 2008, the bank loan portfolio grew by 51.9 percent to Rp 19.3 trillion from around Rp 12.7 trillion a year earlier.

"Our credit card achievement was quite satisfying," senior vice president Dony Oskaria said, underlining one of the main reasons behind continued high growth in Bank Mega lending.

"The number of credit cards issued and financed (by the bank) grew 72.3 percent as of this September from a year earlier."

Nine-month net profits however, declined by 3 percent to Rp 397.1 billion due to rising operational costs, reflecting bank expansion and the opening up of new branch offices.

"We added more than 30 branches this year, which caused substantial operational costs," Dony said. "We also had to recruit almost 2,000 new employees."

This new expansion in banking infrastructure brings the total branches of Bank Mega up to 182 across the country. (dis)

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