BTN Boss Says Trend of Mortgage Contracts by Women is Increasing

JAKARTA - President Director of PT Bank Tabungan Negara/BTN (Persero) Tbk Nixon LP Napitupulu said that the increasing phenomenon of People's Housing Credit (KPR) agreements by women is a new trend.

"We see that one trend is that KPR agreements made by women are increasing day by day. This is actually a new trend," he said, quoting Antara.

During its 74 years of existence, his party has entered into 5.5 million KPR agreements with a total distribution of IDR 461 trillion through subsidized and non-subsidized housing financing, as well as conventional and sharia KPR financing.

The realization of KPR per gender consists of 67.5 percent men, and 32.5 percent women with the realization of distribution for the latter gender from 2020 to 2024 amounting to 173,476 units or around IDR 25 trillion.

"So, if women used to buy houses depending on their prospective husbands, now they are buying their own houses. This is progress," said Nixon.

Regarding the realization of KPR per age, 76.7 percent is dominated by the millennial generation, and 23.3 percent by other generations. This is considered interesting because the housing program is Indonesia's future program.

Then, the realization of KPR per job is 90.3 percent from the formal sector, and the rest from the informal sector which distributes IDR 18 trillion.

"Indeed, this is what we are continuously trying to improve, so that this sector can grow much faster than the formal sector," he also said.

Furthermore, Nixon stated that his party had contracted KPR for various groups in society. Starting from screen printers, online motorcycle taxi drivers, minimarket employees, mosque caretakers, tire repairmen, teachers, to barbers.

The Indonesian government is said to have a big agenda to grow the economy in Indonesia by at least 8 percent, and eradicate extreme poverty to 0 percent. One way to do this is to implement the 3 million housing program consisting of 2 million houses in rural areas and 1 million houses in urban areas.

This effort is made in order to overcome the backlog of home ownership that has reached 9.9 million families who do not or have not owned a house, and more than 50 percent of the poor live in uninhabitable houses. In addition, 24.6 million households that use 450 watts of electricity have houses in uninhabitable conditions.

He conveyed a number of housing sector issues that are obstacles. Starting from the absence of data collection of needs by name by address that has been discussed with the Minister of Social Affairs, so that in the future a database can be provided for banks and developers, then the absorption of the home ownership program has not been evenly distributed to all types of jobs, especially teachers, informal workers, to the TNI/Polri especially those with low ranks.

Another challenge is that the regional government (Pemda) budget related to housing is limited to disaster assistance; slums are not included in low-income housing (MBR). Then, the policies between national and regional governments are not yet optimal, to the lack of optimal synchronization between the Ministry of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning/National Land Agency (ATR/BPN) and regional governments related to land issues and licensing.

"Based on our experience in running housing programs, licensing is one of the important components that must receive attention, considering the number of units to be built is getting bigger and bigger which requires certainty of the time for the licensing process in all regions. "Currently, we hear that the licensing process is still not and not yet one-stop, thus hampering developers in building housing for Low-Income Communities (MBR)," said the BTN President Director.