BNI Syairah resolved to attract more investors

State-owned Bank BNI Syariah is determined to attract more strategic investors this year as part of its efforts to increase capital, according to its President Director Dinno Indiano.

The Bank BNI Syariah has opened itself to investors over the past three years.

“This year we will make even more intensive efforts to lobby for investors. After all, we have the confidence, supported by good performance over the past three years,” Dinno told a press conference in Jakarta on Tuesday.

Earlier, President Director of Bank BNI, Achmad Baiquin, said the state-owned bank was exploring the possibility of cooperating with strategic investors to support the BNI Syariah business. Bank BNI Syariah is a subsidiary of Bank BNI.

Bank BNI was willing to sell 20 percent or more of the stake of its subsidiary to strategic investors. Yet, Bank BNI will remain the majority holder of the Bank BNI Syariah stake.

Last week, Bank BNI said it was optimistic that its Peoples Business Credit (KUR) would increase rapidly in 2016 after the interest rate on the credit scheme was cut to 9 percent per year.

Achmad Baiquni said in a statement that between August 2015 till 2015-end, the publicly traded state lender had already disbursed more than Rp3 trillion in KUR.

Baiquni said this amount is predicted to surge to more than Rp10 trillion in 2016 .

KUR disbursement by BNI was made symbolically at the Glenmore sugar factory in Banyuwangi, East Java, on Wednesday in the presence of the Minister for State Enterprises Rini Soemarno and Achmad Baiquni.

Baiquini said the KUR funneled by BNI in 2015 represented an increase of 70 percent from 2014.

In 2015, there were more than 12,200 KUR recipients all over Indonesia. In East Java alone, BNI funneled Rp476.5 billion in KUR to 2,022 clients, including micro businesses, retailers and workers.

In East Java, KURs are offered to labor intensive and productive sectors such as processing industry, agriculture and trade.

There is a potential KUR market in East Java, and it may attract sugar farmers under the coordination of state plantation company, PT Perkebunan Nusantara (PTPN).

BNI is optimistic that there would be more KUR users in 2016 because of the cut in interest rate and improved economy.