BRI's Loans To Small And Medium Segments Reach Rp21 Trillion In Three Months, Signals The Economy Is Back To Excitement?

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA – PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia Tbk. (BRI) informed that credit disbursement for the small and medium segment experienced positive growth in the first quarter of 2022 with a record of IDR 21.3 trillion to 46,306 customers.

Director of Small and Medium Business BRI Amam Sukriyanto said the score was much higher compared to the same period in 2021 of IDR 16.5 trillion and distributed to 33,269 customers.

"This clearly indicates that the economy is getting more enthusiastic in the 2022 recovery year," he said in an official statement on Saturday, May 7.

According to Amam, the achievements at the beginning of this year show that lending to the small and medium segment has returned to the time before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Meanwhile, in the first quarter of 2020, where the economy was really hit by a pandemic, credit distribution in this segment was only around Rp. 13.1 trillion with 23,581 customers.

"Surely this is a signal that the economy in the region and the city will be excited again. And we will see that the movement will be even faster because of the fact that currently small and medium businesses have started to rise, even better than the early days of the pandemic yesterday," he said.

Furthermore, Amam is increasingly optimistic that the economy will be more vibrant because the majority of credit is absorbed by the productive sectors. In addition, the demand for credit is increasing not only in big cities but also in the regions.

For information, sectors related to basic needs, such as trade, dominate BRI's lending in the small and medium segment, which accounts for 61 percent.

Then followed by the agricultural sector with up to 12 percent, the labor-intensive housing industry absorbed 7 percent of the total portfolio distributed by the company during the first quarter of 2022.

On the other hand, the resilience of loan customers in the small and medium segment, according to him, is getting stronger. He said the peak of the difficult period due to the economic crisis occurred in December 2020. At that time, around 47.38 percent of BRI's loan portfolio in the small and medium business segment had to be restructured.

"This figure has also started to fall, continues to drop drastically, now only 36.19 percent show that they are able to pay credit which has become their obligation in accordance with the interest we have," he concluded.