S

tate lender Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) is looking forward to an increase in remittance transactions from Hong Kong, thanks to the company'€™s automated teller machines (ATMs) that are due to be installed there later this week.

BNI president director Gatot Suwondo said on Tuesday that the bank had recently received approval from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to install ATMs in its branch office and another area nearby.

'€œIn total, we are going to have four ATMs. Two of them will be placed within our own branch office and the other two will be located in Victoria Park,'€ he said.

BNI currently runs its operations in Hong Kong through a subsidiary, BNI Remittance Ltd. '€” which was founded in 1998 '€” in Causeway Bay.

'€œWe chose Victoria Park as an additional location because a lot of Indonesian migrant workers in Hong Kong spend their days off there. We expect the ATMs to help them to send money back home and increase our total remittance transactions,'€ Gatot added.

Bank Indonesia (BI) data shows that last year, the total amount of remittances sent by Hong Kong-based migrant workers totaled US$589 million.

In its 2013 annual report, BNI claimed to control 5 percent of the market of outgoing remittances from Hong Kong to Indonesia, meaning that the amount of funds sent using BNI'€™s network reached $29.45 million.

BNI'€™s international division head, Abdullah Firman Wibowo, said that BNI hoped the new ATMs would help boost its market share to between 6 and 7 percent this year.

'€œWe would also like to see them use the machines to carry out other transactions, such as bill payments and cell phone credit purchases,'€ he added.

According to Firman, the Hong Kong branch was now BNI'€™s largest foreign branch in terms of assets, which totaled $409 million. It is also one of the most profitable branches with $1.6 million in net profits recorded in the first half of this year.

The peak time for remittances in Hong Kong this year, he said, was in June, when migrant workers sent larger-than-usual amounts of money back to Indonesia ahead of Idul Fitri.

At the time, the lender recorded a 15 to 17 percent increase in the number of transactions and an 18 to 20 percent rise in terms of value compared to the previous month.

Meanwhile, besides Hong Kong, the BNI also has branch offices in London, New York, Singapore and Tokyo.

The lender is aiming to see the total assets in its foreign branch offices surge to $1.8 billion by year-end from $1.6 billion in 2013. In profitability, the bank'€™s target is set at $12.9 million, up from the $10 billion reported last year.

As previously reported, the BNI has cast its eye on Myanmar and Saudi Arabia as part of its expansion plan in Asia. Gatot said that discussions were ongoing between the bank and the respective authorities in the two countries.

'€œThe process is not easy because everybody wants to protect their market. I hope that the OJK [Indonesia'€™s Financial Services Authority] will step in and assist us by conducting talks with its counterparts [in Myanmar and Saudi Arabia],'€ he said.