J

AKARTA: HSBC’S sharia division, Amanah Syariah, will allocate Rp 18.5 billion (US$2.12 million) in sharia-based credits to small- and medium-scale enterprises this year through state financing and investment firm PT Permodalan Nasional Madani (PNM) under a profit-sharing (mudharaba) agreement.

PNM director of finance and operation Lintang Nugroho said after the signing of the one-year agreement in Jakarta on Wednesday that PNM would channel the credits to SMEs through its sharia-based microfinance service branches.

PNM currently operates 378 branches throughout Indonesia, seven of which provide sharia-based microfinance services in, among others, Banda Aceh, Padang in West Sumatra, Semarang in Central Java, Surabaya in East Java and Makassar in South Sulawesi, Lintang said.

HSBC head of global banking in Indonesia, Rajeev Babel, said HSBC Indonesia, the first foreign bank to establish a sharia division, last year provided Rp 37 billion in conventional microfinance facility through PNM.

Lintang said that in the last two years, PNM disbursed Rp 2.8 trillion in micro-credits to 45,000 SME, 15 percent of which was channeled through a sharia-based principle. Most of the credits were borrowed for trading, agriculture, and service businesses. — JP