BRI Continues to Focus on Empowering SMEs Amid Geopolitical Challenges

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk or BRI as the bank with the largest SME loan portfolio in Indonesia, this year will remain focused on SMEs, especially related to empowerment. Until the end of December 2023, BRI's credit distribution to MSMEs reached IDR 1,068.7 trillion.

Earlier, at the Financial Services Industry Annual Meeting 2024 (20/2/2024), President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) asked financial services industry to continue to keep Indonesia's economy inclusive and sustainable amid a volatile geopolitical situation.

The President encouraged the financial services industry to contribute to the growth of SMEs through increased access to capital. “Equally important is our support to MSMEs through banking and insurance. Banking credit for SMEs is currently still 19 percent, this needs a breakthrough, there needs to be a strategy so that there is an increase in banking credit to SMEs so that we can see SMEs grow well,” he said.

In this regard, BRI has targeted SME credit growth strategy at 11-12 percent by 2024. “If now, BRI grows its credit by 11.2 percent, then BRI wants to continue to grow aggressively in 2024, namely around 11-12 percent,” said President Director of BRI, Sunarso.

During 2023, BRI managed to drive credit distribution to grow 11.2 percent yoy to Rp 1,266.4 trillion. This achievement is higher compared to the credit distribution of the national banking industry, which amounted to 10.4 percent yoy throughout 2023.

“BRI's credit stands at 1.266 trillion. This means that it is able to grow by 11.2 percent and what is more interesting and more important for BRI is that we remain focused in MSMEs on the SME credit portion of BRI reaching 84.38 percent. Our goal is to reach 85 percent by 2025,” he added.

The strategy, Sunarso continued, will be the first to remain focused on MSMEs, especially in ultra micro. Therefore, the continued performance and strategy of Holding Ultra Micro (UMi) is carried out as a new source of growth. During this time, in terms of expansion of Holding UMi has entered its third year and managed to add as many as 6 million debtors, so that from the initial 31 million debtors (13 September 2021) it has now managed to serve no less than 37 million debtors to gain formal financial access (as of December 2023).

In addition, the number of ultra micro holding customers was recorded to have reached 37 million borrowers. The success of BRI Group integrating customers in the ultra micro segment has had an impact on the decrease in the number of customers who have not yet gained formal access to finance.

Another achievement that Holding UMi has recorded is that it has distributed financing of IDR 53 trillion through digital or cashless ceilings to more than 8.6 million customers. UMi Holding has also integrated more than 31 million data for use as cross selling marketing.

“Ultra Micro Holding got the spirit to be more efficient and also more effective in supporting MSMEs, so that BRI can expand the range of services to the public as much as possible in the most ways and costs,” concluded Sunarso.

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