Wamenkeu Suahasil Sentil Bank Yang Enggan Salurkan KUR: Selisih Bunganya Kamibayar!

Deputy Minister of Finance Suahasil Nazara (Photo: Capture the screen of the Ministry of Finance's Youtube)

JAKARTA - Deputy Minister of Finance (Wamenkeu) Suahasil Nazara asked national banks to continue to support government programs in distributing people's business loans (KUR) to MSME players.

According to Suahasil, his party received signs of reluctance from banks to provide financing for the people's business sector.

"Banks must not be afraid to give KUR, instead they have to compete to finance KUR. Because we want MSMEs to grow," he said through a virtual channel during a working visit to Pontianak, West Kalimantan on Wednesday, February 8.

Suahasil explained, the half-hearted attitude of banks was allegedly due to the government's mandatory interest on low KUR interest, which was 6 percent. This figure tends to be smaller when compared to commercial credit rates and consumptive loans.

"Bank gives 6 percent interest KUR but the bank does not lose. Why? Because the real interest difference will be paid by the state, by the Directorate General of Treasury," he said.

However, in order to avoid inaccuracies practices, Suahasil encouraged banks to set a natural interest rate from the difference that would be subsidized by the government.

"Well, don't give the bank big interest, which is only natural. Later, we will pay the remaining 6 percent for the perpetrator (MSME debtor)," he said.

Sri Mulyani's deputy also said that the government's focus is not only on the scale of the quantity of KUR distribution but also on the aspect of improving the quality of MSMEs itself.

"We want MSMEs to grow, not only the value of KUR to increase. Growing up, what does that mean? There are more MSMEs, larger (the business scale). From micro to small, from small to medium and later. So it's not just that anymore," said Suahasil.

For information, the portion of credit for MSME/SME players in Indonesia tends to be still low when compared to major countries in Southeast Asia. The government itself requires banks to disburse loans at least 30 percent of total credit by 2024.

Meanwhile, the realization of the 2022 KUR distribution was recorded at IDR 365.5 trillion or 97.9 percent of the IDR 373.1 trillion ceiling. Meanwhile, the 2023 KUR target is known to be IDR 460 trillion.