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tate financing firm PT Permodalan Nasional Madani (PNM) expects its new loans to grow by 34.8 percent to Rp 3.1 trillion (US$318.27 million) as it aims to expand its microcredit business this year.

Microcredit accounts for 80 percent of PNM’s lending portfolio, according to the firm’s business director, Tri Susilo. The company currently serves 123,557 customers, most of them are located outside Java and run their businesses in the trading sector.

“This year, we aim to expand our microcredit market to include businesspeople in the creative economy sector because they have the potential to grow. We are still conducting assessments to select our future customers,” Tri said in Jakarta on Wednesday.

PNM managed to grab a wider portion of the microcredit market in the past few years, as shown by the declining average amount of its loans, he added. At the moment, the average loan amount stands at Rp 45 million per customer, with loan periods ranging from one to three years.

“In 2008, the average loan amount was Rp 80 million per customer. It has fallen by about 40 percent ever since. We plan to decrease it even further to around Rp 15 million per customer,” he said.

In 2012, the company disbursed Rp 2.3 trillion in new loans. Its gross nonperforming loan (NPL) ratio, which is a financing firm’s ratio of bad loans, stood at 1.99 percent. PNM would keep the NPL ratio at around the same level in 2013, Tri said.

PNM was set up after the 1998 financial crisis and took over the financing role of Bank Indonesia, which is not allowed to issue microfinance loans directly.

Meanwhile, to reach the new lending target this year, the company will open a total of 100 new microcredit service units across the country, starting in January. Some of them will be located in Ambon, Maluku; Lubuklinggau, South Sumatra; Palu, Central Sulawesi; and Pekanbaru, Riau. By year end, it hopes to have a total of 577 such units.

PNM set aside Rp 36.3 billion in internal cash for this year’s business development plan. Some 34.4 percent of the funds are allocated for the establishment of the new services units, while the remaining 65.6 percent will be used to improve its information technology system.

According to PNM president director Parman Nataatmadja, the company plans to issue Rp 1 trillion in bonds this year to support its microcredit business. The debt papers will have a maturity period of
five years.

“We are looking to acquire our shareholders’ approval. Hopefully we can issue the bonds in late first half or early in the second half of the year,” he said.

If approved, it will be the company’s second bonds issuance as it sold Rp 500 billion in debt papers for the same purpose last year.

Besides lending, PNM also runs its investment operations through subsidiary PT PNM Investment Management (PNMIM). As previously reported, PNMIM is aiming for Rp 2.5 trillion in accumulated asset management funds this year, a 66.7 percent increase from 2012.

Parman said PNM hoped its revenues would climb 26.6 percent to
Rp 1 trillion by year-end, while its bottom line was expected to increase 15 percent from last year’s estimation. The company previously estimated that its 2012 net profits would reach between Rp 20 billion to Rp 26 billion.

Based on its unaudited 2012 financial report, PNM’s total assets amounted to Rp 4 trillion as of December. Its liabilities and equities were reported at Rp 3.4 trillion and Rp 600 billion, respectively.