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tate lender Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) expects a decline in the bank'€™s earnings growth this year as the country'€™s economic slowdown is hurting the bank'€™s loans expansion.

BRI finance director Haru Koesmahargyo said the bank'€™s profits would likely grow only by a single digit as compared to the more than 14 percent in 2014.

'€œOur business targets have changed as the months have passed. We are still calculating our bottom line projection, but our profits will most likely be below last year'€™s achievement, at a single digit only,'€ he said.

BRI '€” still the most profitable lender in Indonesia '€” recorded Rp 24.2 trillion (US$1.82 billion) in its bank-only net profits in 2014, an increase of 14.3 percent from 2013.

It was the third-highest profit growth recorded by Indonesia'€™s top 10 banks last year, after Bank Danamon and Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI).

According to its unaudited financial statement, BRI reaped Rp 9.09 trillion in profits from its operations during the January-May period. However, the figure is actually 6.9 percent lower compared to the same period in 2014.

Haru attributed the lackluster profit performance to the latest economic slowdown that had decelerated overall credit demands. '€œOur data shows that our lending had not even reached a double-digit growth rate by the end of the first half,'€ he said.

BRI has not published its first-half financial report, but as of May its outstanding loans climbed 8.6 percent, much slower than the 18.7 percent rate gained in the same period just a year before.

If compared to December 2014, the latest growth rate has fallen 0.1 percent.

Haru said that credit quality played a role in its slower credit growth as well this year, as BRI opted to put the brakes on credit expansion to prevent quality deterioration. '€œBut we will try to maintain the NIM [net interest margin] ratio at an average 8 percent throughout the year,'€ he added.

Overall, BRI now seeks to raise its lending portfolio by 13 to 15 percent only in 2015, down from the 17 percent growth target that was announced in its original banking business plan.

Meanwhile, BRI also aims to establish more partnerships with fellow state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to generate higher fee-based income to compensate slower interest income from the lagging credit growth.

It recently inked agreements on payroll management and custody services with state life insurer PT Jiwasraya and hopes to sign similar deals with other SOEs in the second half.

Such agreements, according to Haru, will help the bank reach at least a 30 percent year-on-year growth target in fee-based income in 2015. By year-end, the fee-based income is expected to stand at Rp 8.1 trillion.

'€œWe are on track with the fee-based income projection so far. It has increased around 35 percent year-on-year until the middle of 2015,'€ he said.