Islamic Financial Assets Soar, But Inclusion is Still a PR

JAKARTA - The Financial Services Authority (OJK) notes that the performance of the national sharia financial sector continues to show a positive trend despite the uncertainty of the global economy.

Until December 31, 2025, the total assets of the Islamic financial industry were recorded at Rp. 3,100 trillion, or grew 8.61 percent year-on-year.

Chairman of the OJK Commission Board, Friderica Widyasari Dewi alias Kiki, said that this growth reflects the stability of the syariah financial services sector which remains maintained in the midst of global geopolitical and geoeconomic dynamics.

"At the national level, the performance of the Islamic financial services sector has also experienced stable growth, even in the midst of global geopolitical and geoeconomic dynamics," said Friderica at the Closing of the 2026 Islamic Finance Ramadan Gebyar, Thursday, April 2.

In detail, the assets of Islamic banking were recorded at Rp1,067 trillion, the Islamic capital market at Rp1,800 trillion, and the Islamic non-bank financial sector at Rp188 trillion.

This performance was supported by a 9.58 percent (yoy) growth in financing to around Rp755 trillion, as well as an increase in Third Party Funds (DPK) of 10.14 percent.

In addition, the market capitalization of sharia also increased significantly to reach Rp. 8,900 trillion or grew 31.4 percent year-on-year.

He added that the value of assets under management (Asset Under Management/AUM), Islamic insurance assets, and Islamic financing receivables also continued to increase.

"AUM, the value of sharia assets under management also continues to increase, the value of sharia insurance assets, and sharia financing receivables continue to grow," he said.

According to Friderica, the strong foundation of the Islamic financial sector also supports the national economy, and this is supported by Indonesia's great potential, including the number of Muslim populations which reaches around 244.7 million people, as well as increasing public awareness of a lifestyle based on sharia.

"Of course, this potential must be worked on more in the future. Government support, if we look at President Prabowo, is also extraordinary for our sharia policy, as well as technological progress and the process of digitization," he said.

However, OJK assessed that there was still a fairly wide gap between the level of literacy and the inclusion of Islamic finance.

Based on the 2025 National Survey on Financial Literacy and Inclusion (SNLIK) released by the OJK together with the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), the sharia financial literacy reached 43.42 percent, while the inclusion rate was only 13.41 percent.

The Chief Executive of the OJK Financial Services Practitioner Behavior Supervisory, Dicky Kartikoyono, explained that public understanding of Sharia finance is actually quite good, however, the main challenge is to encourage the public to be more active in using Sharia financial products and services.

"SNLIK we see that the literacy and financial inclusion index of this sharia is 43.4 percent, sorry, then the inclusion is still low. What does it mean? The understanding of Muslims is quite good about how the sharia financial economy, but our task is to invite them to the whole system is still a challenge," he said.

He gave an example for comparison, in the conventional financial sector, the level of inclusion is relatively high although literacy, especially related to digital finance, still needs to be improved, and this is among others driven by the ease of access to financial services through mobile devices.

"Because everything can be accessed through a mobile phone. It's easy to borrow, but literacy is still a challenge," he said.

Overall, the national financial literacy index in 2025 was recorded at 66.46 percent, with conventional financial inclusion reaching 79.71 percent.

Meanwhile, the sharia sector still has a large room for increasing inclusion and literacy.

Dicky emphasized that this condition is both a challenge and an opportunity for regulators and industry players to strengthen financial education to the public, in order to encourage the wider use of Sharia financial products.

"This is actually a capital for us in Islamic finance because the literature is good. In relation to this, we certainly invite you to jointly carry out a smart national financial movement," he concluded.