Bank Syariah Indonesia And BSI Maslahat Encourage Sustainable MSMEs Through Zakat Empowerment

JAKARTA - PT Bank Syariah Indonesia Tbk (BSI) continues to strive to provide benefits and positive contributions to the community, especially MSME players to be more empowered. One of them is done by the Company through BSI Maslahat, by distributing zakat to sustainable empowerment programs for the MSME ecosystem for meatball traders.

BSI and BSI Maslahat provide capital assistance, assistance in halal certification and good financial management training. Through these efforts, it is hoped that fostered MSMEs, which are currently mustahic or zakat recipients, will advance to muzaki or zakat givers in the future.

It is the Ikhtiar Swadaya Mandiri Cooperative (ISM) Ngudi Makmur in South Jakarta, which is one of the assisted and empowered by the Company with BSI Maslahat. The ISM Cooperative currently oversees 100 MSMEs selling meatballs in the South Jakarta area and has received halal certification.

Joko Iskandar, one of the administrators of the ISM Cooperative, Ngudi Makmur, said that through assistance from BSI and BSI Maslahat, currently his party feels very encouraged so that it is able to provide benefits for the 100 MSMEs under the auspices of the cooperative. Not only is it home to 100 MSMEs, the Ngudi Makmur ISM Cooperative also opens partnerships/franchises in 3 other locations, namely Roxy in Central Jakarta, Halim in East Jakarta, and in the Bekasi area, West Java.

According to him, the assistance provided by BSI and BSI Maslahat is not only in the form of funds and training, but also for cattle and chicken breeders, Slaughterhouses (RPH), to halal certification. Therefore, his party really feels that the assistance provided is able to provide synergy and sustainable empowerment through a strong ecosystem.

"So the assistance from BSI and BSI Maslahat is a program from upstream to downstream. Upstream are farmers who are in Lampung and we are in this cooperative downstream. Farmers in Lampung are also assisted by BSI Maslahat so that their health is guaranteed. Later, farmers will send live cows, which will be accommodated at the RPH, we also cooperate with the RPH, which already has a halal certificate," he said, in a written statement, quoted on Thursday, January 30.

Thus, through the empowerment of the ecosystem, meat that has been cut is not sold in the market. But it can be directly accommodated by MSME players who are meatball traders. Of course this shortens the distribution path and reduces production costs. So that the selling price becomes more economical for consumers, but with maintained quality.

"So there is one broken chain. We are in second hand now not the third hand anymore," said Joko.

Joko said that thanks to assistance from BSI and BSI Maslahat, currently 100 MSMEs selling meatballs under the auspices of the Ngudi Makmur ISM Cooperative were able to increase their daily income. Previously, their gross income was in the range of Rp. 500,000 - Rp. 600,000 per day.

As for the empowerment carried out by BSI and BSI Maslahat, now it can reach the range of Rp. 700,000 and even touch the nominal value of Rp. 800,000. Joko also hopes that more people will want to participate as entrepreneurs.

We usually conduct surveys to provide benefits, especially to mustahik. One of the conditions is that they are meatball business actors or at least have the experience of selling, then they are classified as mustahik as evidenced by the condition that the certificate is not able. Then later we will prepare everything starting from raw materials, meat, chicken, also provided with processing, one of which is meatball production house and meat milling," he said.

According to Joko, the assistance from BSI and BSI Maslahat is one way for cooperatives to provide value and benefits more. In addition, with synergies through ecosystems like this, it guarantees the halalness of the meatballs sold.

Joko hopes that the assistance from BSI and BSI Maslahat can continue and be able to reach other cooperatives throughout Indonesia. Because, Joko continued, this program not only provides benefits for cooperatives downstream, but also farmers or producers upstream.

According to him, synergies like this are needed to make the economy continue to rotate. On the other hand, MSME actors assisted by the Ngudi Makmur ISM Cooperative are also getting to know and know BSI as well as its products and services.

"With this program, they know better and know BSI. We also introduce it to BSI products and use QRIS BSI, so that way they also become BSI customers," he concluded.

Meanwhile, related to the performance of BSI zakat, it has distributed Rp152.30 billion until November 2024. This amount is distributed to the economic, education, humanitarian, health sectors, to advocacy da'wah.