People's Ability to Save is More Depressed, Banking DPK Projected to Slow Down

Illustration of connecting (pixabay)

JAKARTA - The growth of third-party funds (DPK) or community savings in national banking is estimated to slow down in 2026. On the other hand, people's ability to save is increasingly stressed even though the desire to set aside income is still high.

Bank Indonesia projects the growth of DPK in 2026 at 6.18 percent on an annual basis (year on year/yoy), down significantly from the realized growth of 13.83 percent in 2025.

Executive Director of the NEXT Indonesia Center, Christiantoko, said the slowdown occurred amid the widening inequality of people's savings. Until May 2026, total banking savings were recorded at Rp. 10,330 trillion or grew 13.40 percent annually. However, this growth was largely supported by accounts with balances above Rp. 1 billion.

According to Christiantoko, this condition reflects the gap between people's desire to save and their increasingly limited financial ability.

Based on the Consumer and Economic Survey of the Savings Guarantee Institution (LPS), the willingness to save index in June 2026 increased to 90.2. Conversely, the savings ability index actually fell to 73.2.

"These data show that our community actually still has a high awareness and willingness to save. However, household spending pressures and the recovery of purchasing power make their ability to set aside income increasingly limited," Christiantoko said in a statement, Sunday, August 2.

He explained that inequality was also seen from the structure of people's savings. Based on LPS data, accounts with balances below IDR 100 million account for 98.90 percent of the total 682.1 million accounts in Indonesia, but only account for 11.06 percent of total banking savings funds.

In contrast, accounts with balances above Rp1 billion only cover 0.12 percent of total accounts, but control 70.85 percent of total savings funds in the banking sector.

"In fact, the growth of deposits as of May 2026, funds in the account group above Rp1 billion increased by Rp236 trillion on a monthly basis. Meanwhile, deposits below Rp100 million actually decreased by around Rp15 trillion," he said.

Christiantoko assessed that the increase in the number of bank accounts does not necessarily indicate an increase in people's ability to save because most of the new accounts still have relatively small balances.

Therefore, he assessed that the growth of DPK could not be used as an indicator that the financial condition of the community had improved evenly. According to him, banks need to expand the retail savings base and not only rely on customers with large funds.

In addition, increasing people's ability to save requires support through increasing income, creating jobs, and maintaining household purchasing power.

"Therefore, the challenge of collecting DPK is not merely to increase the number of accounts or pursue nominal savings growth. A more fundamental challenge is to make more people actually have money that can be set aside and combined. Because, as long as the growth of savings is still based on the upper group, the increase in DPK cannot be read as a sign that the financial condition of the community has improved," concluded Christiantoko.