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tate-owned Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) is expecting that its new series of debit cards, which have higher transaction limits, will attract customers to deposit money in the bank.

BNI launched on Friday three variants of the debit card, which offers unlimited transaction frequency and a maximum transaction limit of Rp 100 million (US$10,395) from the previous Rp 20 million.

BNI’s general manager for card business, Wiweko Probojakti, said that as of the end of November, the bank had 9.5 million debit-card holders with total combined transactions amounting to Rp 4.5 trillion, a 48 percent increase year-on-year.

“We are predicting a 70 percent increase next year. We are optimistic that with the new card, we will capture Rp 7 trillion in transactions next year,” Wiweko said.

Customers holding BNI debit cards will be able to use them to conduct transactions via automatic teller machines (ATMs) and make payments through electronic data capture (EDC) machines provided by various merchants.

Non-cash transactions using the cards will see BNI enjoy growing fee-based income. However, according to BNI’s consumer and retail banking director, Darmadi Sutanto, the fees from debit card usage were not as large as those of credit cards.

Despite small contributions to the bank’s fee-based income, BNI is expecting that debit card usage can support the accumulation of low-cost funds.

“We want to change the concept of putting money in the bank, from savings to transactions. The new debit cards are expected to encourage more people to save more [money in the bank] because they will need the funds to pay for their transactions,” Darmadi said.

Savings are necessary for banks because they are low-cost funds attracting low interest rates, which the lender can use to disburse loans with higher interest rates.

Darmadi said that BNI expected to see an increase in low-cost funds from the current 17 to 20 percent level.

“Before the new debit cards, our low-cost funds have grown by between 17 and 20 percent. Next year, we are expecting more than 20 percent, supported by the new products,” Darmadi said.

The launch of the new debit cards is just one method the bank is taking to attract more people to deposit their money in the bank. Darmadi said the bank had also developed electronic banking, and Internet banking to encourage people to make payments with their cards.

BNI’s attempt to boost the usage of debit cards is related to the central bank’s aim to cap credit card interest rates at a maximum of 2.95 percent per month, which will become effective in January 2013.

“Automatically, our yield will go down. Therefore, we have to prevent our costs from rising. And that can be done through higher savings,” Darmadi said.

BNI currently had more than 10 million customers, whose combined savings totaled Rp 238.94 billion as of the end of September, an increase of 16.9 percent compared to Rp 204.38 billion in the same period last year, according to the bank’s statement submitted to the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) recently.

“We hope that, within about five years, debit card transactions will be higher in number than those from credit cards,” Wiweko said.

—JP/ Raras Cahyafitri