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tate lender Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) saw a slight increase in its third quarter net profit as macroeconomic challenges continued to affect its performance.

The publicly listed bank posted Rp 18.29 trillion (US$1.34 billion) in net profits in the third quarter, growing by only 1.41 percent year-on-year (yoy) from Rp 18.03 trillion in the same period last year.

The bank'€™s third quarter net profit was only slightly higher than its 1.16 percent yoy growth in the first half.

The third quarter net profit included Rp 60.92 trillion of interest income, which jumped 16.12 percent from Rp 52.45 trillion in the third quarter last year, while its net interest margin (NIM) dropped slightly to 8.08 percent from 8.78 percent in the third quarter last year.

The bank also saw a 7.21 percent increase of its non-interest income to Rp 9.56 trillion from Rp 8.91 trillion in the third quarter of 2014.

BRI deputy president director Sunarso said the main issues faced by the bank as well as other lenders in the country were global uncertainty and the weak domestic economy, which affected loan growth and the quality of credit.

'€œHowever, BRI was still able to post loan growth above the industry'€™s average at 11.8 percent yoy to Rp 518.9 trillion as of September, compared to Rp 464.19 trillion in the same period last year,'€ Sunarso said at a press conference on Thursday.

Sunarso said the main engine of loan growth was the micro segment, which contributed 32.8 percent to the bank'€™s total loans and grew by 14.7 percent yoy to Rp 170.2 trillion in the third quarter.

The bank'€™s loan growth was also helped by high demand in the government'€™s microloan program called People'€™s Business Credit (KUR), which had reached Rp 3.1 trillion and disbursed to 200,000 customers in two months since the new scheme was started, Sunarso said.

'€œAs of now, our KUR loans have reached Rp 5 trillion, meaning that we were able to disburse almost Rp 2 trillion in only a month between September and mid-October,'€ BRI president director Asmawi Syam said.

Aside from micro loans, BRI also saw growth in two other segments, namely retail and corporate, which grew by 11.18 percent and 11.4 percent, respectively. However, its commercial loans decreased slightly to Rp 19.92 trillion from Rp 19.5 trillion in the third quarter of last year, according to its corporate presentation.

As credit quality was declining, Sunarso said the bank saw rising gross non-performing loans (NPL) to 2.24 percent as of September, from 1.89 percent in the same period last year.

Sunarso said the bank'€™s net NPL only rose slightly to 0.59 percent from 0.46 percent in the third quarter last year as it had decided to increase coverage ratio to 150 percent from 143 percent previously.

'€œOur loan-loss provision was increased from Rp 4.8 trillion to Rp 6.8 trillion,'€ BRI finance director Haru Koesmahargyo added, saying that the rising provision would not thwart the bank'€™s aim of higher net profit growth in the fourth quarter this year.

As for the liability side, Sunarso said the bank booked 12.3 percent yoy growth in third-party funds (DPK) to Rp 611.3 trillion as of September, from Rp 544.3 trillion in the same period last year, with current and savings accounts (CASA) contributing 56.2 percent to the total deposits.

The increase in third-party funds also helped increase the bank'€™s total assets, which grew by 13.5 percent yoy to Rp 683.3 trillion as of September, from Rp 775.8 trillion in the same period last year.