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ajor lenders Bank Central Asia (BCA) and Bank Internasional Indonesia (BII) ended the first quarter of 2015 with different results on their bottom lines, as revealed by their financial reports.

BCA '€” the country'€™s largest private lender in terms of assets '€” had started to feel the pinch of a slower economy in the first quarter, according to president director Jahja Setiaatmadja.

'€œBusiness was slow in the first three months of this year and credit demands decelerated. Our lending portfolio has even declined if we compare it to what we achieved at the end of 2014,'€ he said on Wednesday during a press conference.

The lagging economy, he added, resulted in the lender only posting an annual growth of 5.8 percent to Rp 335.58 trillion (US$25.88 billion) in its outstanding loans in March. In December, the figure still stood at Rp 346.56 trillion.

The first quarter'€™s loan growth rate was far below the 19.7 percent reported during the same period in 2014.

All of BCA'€™s lending segments '€” comprising corporate, commercial, small and medium enterprises and consumer '€” booked a slower pace in the January to March period, according to the report.

The steepest growth decline was recorded in its corporate banking, which was down to 2.9 percent year-on-year from 21.1 percent year-on-year.

Jahja said that BCA would monitor the economic situation on a quarterly basis to determine the feasibility of its 2015 target. '€œWe will see whether we can achieve the 12 to 15 percent growth in lending this year. We will not force it if the market remains weary,'€ he added.

With slower business, BCA also saw slower growth in both its net interest income and non-interest income. While its net interest income rose at a pace of 11.4 percent from 26.6 percent, the non-interest income climbed 19.9 percent only from 30 percent.

At the end of the period, BCA'€™s net profits amounted to Rp 4.06 trillion, an increase of 10.7 percent, whereas a year ago, the bottom line jumped 26.7 percent.

Meanwhile, BII '€” part of Malaysia'€™s Maybank Group '€” reported slow business as well in the first quarter, but it managed to book higher profit growth after posting poor results during the previous four consecutive quarters because of declining credit quality.

BII president director Taswin Zakaria previously said that it had implemented a new credit policy and a recovery scheme that would turn its profitability around.

By the end of March, its net profits surged 33.5 percent year-on-year to reach Rp 255.61 billion. Its net interest margin (NIM) improved as well, climbing to 4.8 percent from 4.7 percent.

Similar to BCA, BII also reported slower loan growth in the first quarter, up by 6.2 percent only to Rp 107.6 trillion. The rate fell from an annual growth of 27 percent recorded between January and March 2014.

Of all its banking segments, global banking became the only segment that recorded a decline. Global banking fell 16.1 percent to Rp 23.9 trillion because of the re-profiling of its corporate clients, a move that BII claims will help improve its credit quality.

Both BCA and BII are listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). On Wednesday, BCA'€™s shares '€” traded under the '€œBBCA'€ code '€” declined 3.9 percent to Rp 13,500 apiece from the previous day, while BII'€™s shares '€” offered as '€œBNII'€ '€” were down 1.5 percent to Rp 191 apiece.