Asset Quality Is Getting Better, This Is BRI's Strategy To Reduce Problematic Credit Ratios

JAKARTA - PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk or BRI managed to record credit disbursement of Rp1,353.36 trillion until the end of the third quarter of 2024, or grew 8.21 percent on an annual basis or year on year (yoy).

In line with this, BRI is also able to manage the quality of its assets well. This is shown from the BRI's Non Performing Loan (NPL) ratio which continues to improve, with an NPL ratio in the third quarter of 2024 of 2.90 percent or an improvement compared to the previous year's period which was recorded at 3.07 percent.

In addition to NPL, the company also managed to record a better Loan at Risk (LAR) ratio, from 13.80 percent at the end of the third quarter of 2023 to 11.66 percent at the end of the third quarter of 2024.

BRI Director of Risk Management Agus Sudiarto said that the decline in NPL was supported by several strategies carried out by the Company in managing credit, starting from front-end, mid-end, to back-end.

"Both at the front-end when we underwriting new loans then supervised the loans in our book. Even more specifically since the beginning of the second quarter of 2024, we have tightened it on the front-end," Agus said in a statement to the media, Wednesday, November 13.

Agus explained that the tightening of credit selection for new debtors was through predetermined criteria, so that debtors who applied for credit would be filtered and BRI NPL would experience a decline.

"We know that in the first quarter of this year, we had an increase in the NPL ratio, but with various strategies that we did, not only did NPL actually go down, including in the LAR, we also experienced a decline," he added.

On the same occasion, BRI President Director Sunarso revealed that the decline in the NPL and LAR ratios was supported by the implementation of a disciplined risk management strategy across business lines. BRI actively monitors credit quality and adopts the Early Warning System to detect potential credit problems as early as possible. In addition, BRI has also strengthened the recovery team to manage non-performing loans more quickly and efficiently.

In addition to improving credit quality, BRI is also still preparing adequate reserves with NPL Coverage of 215.44 percent.

"BRI has implemented various risk mitigation measures, ranging from selective growth, proactive credit monitoring, backup strengthening, to problematic credit settlements carried out with a collaborative approach with customers," said Sunarso.