JAKARTA. Financial Service Authority (FSA) is still struggling to endorse efficiency in banking sectors. Previously, FSA has allocated a number of capital cores to banking sector as an incentive to boost banking efficiency.

Deputy Commissioner for Banking Supervision at FSA Irwan Lubis said that the data of banks’ operational cost in operating income (BOPO) show that banking sector still allocate huge amount of capital to develop digital banking. “In 2017, banks will allocate their capital expenditure to purchase ATM machines”, Irwan said.

As an information, FSA offers discount up to 50% of core capital allocation for banks, which meets FSA’s requirement on the level of BOPO ratio and net interest margin (NIM) ratio.

Sulit Cari Emas Fisik? Begini Cara Tetap Raih Cuan di Pasar Emas

Data from FSA show that the BOPO ratio of all banks under the category of General Bank Enterprise Activity (BUKU) is still higher than FSA’s incentive requirement.

The middle level banks or banks under the category of BUKU III recorded as the most inefficient banks with 87.93% of BOPO ratio. During the same period, banks under the category of BUKU IV or the high level banks became more inefficient with an increase of BOPO ratio by 3.57% to 74.03%.

The net interest margin (NIM) ratio of the banks reflects that the banks tended to decrease credit interest rate. Recently, the NIM of general banks tended to hike by 20 basis points (BPS) from 5.39% to 5.59%. The data show that the high level banks or banks under the category of BUKU IV booked the highest NIM rate at 6.48%.

Financial Director of PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia Tbk (BRI) Haru Koesmahargyo said that the bank preferred to expand the digital banking to all over Indonesia rather than open new branches.

“BRI already has 10,000 branches and 30,000 BRILink in all over Indonesia”, Haru said.

Meanwhile, President Director of OCBC NISP Parwati Surjaudaja said that the bank is not interested in FSA’s incentives, even though the bank plans to set new branches in eastern part of Indonesia. (Translator: Muhammad Farid)