Bank of Indonesia Denpasar advised rural bank (BPR) in Bali to be more cautious in distributing fund that came from “linkage” program from common bank. If the linkage fund is not well managed or even abused, it will definitely decrease the health condition of the concerning BPR.

Thus was said by Deputy Head of Bank of Indonesia Denpasar Wijoyo Santoso in the law seminar, for companies, linkage and collateral related to shareholders and directors authority, last Friday (21/8).

According to Wijoyo, at the present time the linkage program between common bank and BPR in Bali was keep experiencing positive growth in both quantity and quality. This matter must be kept maintained and recovered. In Bali at the present time there were 142 BPR and 43 common banks.

Head of DPD Perbarindo Bali Made Arya Amitabha said that common bank’s linkage program must be kept to improve in both quality and quantity. With linkage program, common banks won’t need to have hard competition in micro small and medium sector market. “BPR hopes that Bank Andara can give something more when it’s compared to the other common banks”, he said.

Meanwhile a number of gathered BPR managers were welcoming the cooperation between Bank Andara and Perbarindo Bali. They only complained the offered credit interest rate from Bank Andara. According to a BPR manager that didn’t want to be publicized the 15 percent per year offered credit interest rate is not competitive. The cause was the other common bank offered a lower interest which is 12.5-13 percent per year.

Responding to this issue the CEO of Bank Andara Paulus Wiranata said that, about interest rate it still could be negotiated or could be reduced depends on the BPR condition. The cooperation offered by Bank Andara is different with other common bank. Bank Andara is definitely can be assured that it will not compete with BPR because it has become a wholesale bank. “We also offer cooperation in human resource and information technology.” he said. At the moment, Bank Andara had already in cooperation with 37 BPR outside of Bali. While for BPR in Bali there will be cooperation with all existing BPR. Everything had been done in stages according to Bank Andara condition. So far Mercycorps had funded Rp. 40 billion. The fund was not enough and it will be gathered from the third party funding. This year the target for the third party funding will be Rp. 100 billion.

Related to human resource, he admitted the downsizing. The number of still required ex-Bank Sri Partha employees was only 10 percent.