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ouse of Representatives members have approved, albeit temporarily, a 48 percent increase in the annual budget of the Financial Services Authority (OJK) pending the finalization of the state budget.

During a meeting on Tuesday evening, members of the House'€™s Commission XI approved the higher budget. However, the agreement is subject to change as lawmakers are awaiting the outcome of deliberations on the state budget by a different committee.

Only eight of the 48 House Commission XI members showed up for Tuesday'€™s talks with the OJK.

House Commission XI chairman Olly Dondokambey said his commission would wait for the completion of talks on the 2015 state budget by the budget committee before giving definite approval.

'€œThis is because a part of the funds will be sourced from the state budget. We cannot decide now,'€ said Olly, a member of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

In its proposal to the House, the OJK said it needed a total of Rp 3.58 trillion (US$300.9 million) to finance its operations next year. The figure is a sharp increase from the Rp 2.41 trillion that has been allocated for 2014, which is wholly financed by the state budget.

According to the proposal, as much as Rp 1.74 trillion of the 2015 budget would come from state coffers, while the remaining Rp 1.84 trillion would be sourced from financial companies under the OJK'€™s fee collection scheme.

OJK chairman Muliaman D. Hadad said the increase was needed as the superbody was now employing more staff to oversee a wider range of financial sectors, including banking supervision, which was moved to OJK from Bank Indonesia in early 2014.

The proposal shows that the biggest funds allocation for the new budget is to the administration segment, accounting for more than 65 percent of the funds, followed by operational costs, assets procurement and others.

However, assets procurement is the segment that increases the most, its budget double what was allocated for 2014.

'€œWe are looking to open more branch offices so that we can cover more of Indonesia. At the moment, we don'€™t have offices in North Maluku or Bangka Belitung, among other areas,'€ he said.

During the same meeting, the OJK reported that by Sept. 1, it had used 43.5 percent of this year'€™s budget. OJK deputy chairman Rahmat Waluyanto said that it expected to reach 92.1 percent in budget realization by the end of the year.

'€œMany contracts, especially in assets procurement, are due in the fourth quarter,'€ he said, adding that the remainder of the budget would be reallocated to other areas with the approval of the Finance Ministry and the House.