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Bank Permata eyes stronger ties with Astra
Publicly listed lender Bank Permata aims for tighter integration with its parent company, diversified conglomerate PT Astra International, in the years ahead following its recovery from loss incurred last year
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ublicly listed lender Bank Permata aims for tighter integration with its parent company, diversified conglomerate PT Astra International, in the years ahead following its recovery from loss incurred last year.
Bank Permata financial director Lea Setianti Kusumawidjaya said the bank would continue providing financial services to all of Astra’s business lines, which started this year.
“We have been collaborating with Astra in the automotive and financial services [sector]. Going forward, we will support Astra in all business sectors,” she said.
Bank Permata would, among other measures, add Toyota Astra Finance, part of Astra’s automotive financing subsidiaries, as joint partners to offer financing solutions to the lender’s customers, in addition to seeking more third-party partners for its retail banking sector, Lea added. Aside from expanding partnerships and cooperations, the bank will also broaden its services.
“We will provide a one-finance solution for all of our clients’ needs. While we focused on lending in the past, we will offer more [services] going forward, such as cash market management and global market solutions,” Lea said.
Bank Permata seeks to widen its customer base in the retail and corporate banking sectors.
The bank improved its financial performance in the third quarter of this year after experiencing loss in 2016. It booked a Rp 708 billion (US$ 52.39 million) profit in the January-September period, reversing a Rp 1.23 trillion loss in the same period last year.
Bank Permata suffered from a rise of non-performing loans (NPL) in 2016, with its gross NPL picking up to 8.8 percent from 2.7 percent in 2015. Net NPL, meanwhile, rose to 2.2 percent in the previous year from 1.4 percent a year earlier.
The surge means that the bank had to jack up allocation for impairment to Rp 11.68 trillion, almost four times the amount allocated in 2015. It also ended 2016 in the red, booking a Rp 6.49 trillion net loss. However, Bank Permata immediately bounced back and posted a net profit of Rp 453 billion in the first quarter of 2017.
It has also been able to push down its bad loans. As of September this year, its gross NPL and net NPL stood at 4.7 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively.
Astra’s head of investor relation, Tira Ardianti, credited Bank Permata’s return to profit as a contributor to its parent company’s 26 percent increase in net profit in the third quarter of this year, apart from favorable coal and crude palm oil prices, and greater automotive sales.
