Lending expansion helped Bank Mandiri, the nation's largest asset-based lender, achieve a 16.8 percent growth in net profits in the first nine months of the year from a year earlier despite a slower economic growth.
Net profits during the January-September period reached Rp 4.62 trillion (US$478 million) from Rp 3.95 trillion during the same period in 2008.
Mandiri president director Agus Martowardojo claimed Thursday the bank's profit growth was higher than the national figure, which was estimated to be around 11 percent.
The positive performance was in part due to strong lending expansion, particularly in the micro- and retail-credit portfolios.
"Our credit customers from small and medium enterprises *SMEs* grew by 59.36 percent from 272,879 to 434,872 as of September year-on-year. The fund that had been channeled to SMEs therefore, rose by 18.6 percent to Rp 25.51 trillion from Rp 21.51 million, during the same period," Agus said.
Mandiri's total lending for the January-September 2009 period hit Rp 188.3 trillion, 15.7 percent higher than last year's Rp 162.8 trillion. Agus said the bank aimed to reach a 16 percent lending growth by the end of this year.
By quarter, Mandiri posted a 26 percent increase in the third quarter from a quarter earlier as loan demand increased in Southeast Asia's largest economy.
Meanwhile, in addition to interest-based income, the bank's earnings from fee-based income also showed positive growth in the first nine months of the year, due to the boom of electronic transactions and mobile-phone banking.
From September 2009, fee-based income contributed Rp 4 trillion to the bank, 28 percent higher than last year's Rp 3.12 trillion.
"As much as 80 percent of transactions are now made electronically. Our active Internet-banking users now hit 1.2 million people while SMS-banking users reach 5.5 million people," Agus said.
Due to the positive business performance in credit, Agus said, the bank planned to cut the lending interest again by 0.5 percent, effective next month, enabling total rate cuts of 2.25 percent this year.
"We hope our lower-lending rates can be followed by other banks, which will boost growth in the real sector and provide more employment," Agus said.
The nonperforming loans (NPL) ratio also declined. As of September 2009, the bank's net-NPL ratio was 0.85 percent, higher than last year's 0.56 percent.
Bank Mandiri chief financial officer Pahala N. Mansury Pahala said the bank's current revenue market share hit 14 percent and was expected to reach 20 percent by the end of 2010. "We also aim to reach a national market share of 18 percent in savings," he added.
Meanwhile, the bank's total savings hit Rp 295.5 trillion, which is a 20.5 percent growth from last year. (bbs)
| 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|