Projecting Credit Growth In 2023 Is Lower Than This Year, Bank Mandiri Expresss Several Factors

JAKARTA - PT Bank Mandiri (Persero) Tbk projects that the company's credit growth in 2023 will be lower than this year. This year, Bank Mandiri targets its credit to grow 11 percent on an annual basis.

"The year 2023 is the normalization year where one of the factors is the possibility that the Financial Services Authority (OJK) will not continue the process or credit restructuring policy affected by the COVID-19 pandemic," said Bank Mandiri Risk Management Director Ahmad Siddik Badruddin in the 2022 Public Expose Live quoted by Antara, Thursday 15 September.

Thus, he assessed that banks must adjust their collectability or credit progress for accounts that are restructured due to exposure to COVID-19.

In addition, there are other factors that will affect Bank Mandiri's credit growth next year, one of which is the impact of changes in the global macroeconomic environment, both caused by various macroeconomic decisions by the United States (US) Central Bank, The Fed and other global central banks.

According to Ahmad, the pre-emptive policy from Bank Indonesia (BI), according to Ahmad, will also affect the company's credit growth in 2023.

Therefore, the thing to watch out for next year is the development of the ratio of non-performing loans (NPL) in the banking industry and the adequacy of bank impairment losses (CKPN) for accounts that are restructured due to the impact of the pandemic.

Bank Mandiri itself has embraced the conservative regime, where for restructured credit due to COVID-19 since March 2020, the company has set aside additional CKPN loans in stages from 2020 until now.

"That way, if the OJK policy is not extended next year, we are ready with all the required CKPN and we have carried out downgrades accounts for accounts that cannot survive anymore, so for us NPL and CKPN there will be no effect," he said.

Nevertheless, he reminded that what needs to be watched out for is whether the same practice is carried out by other banks and its impact on other banking industry NPLs by 2023, which will also have an impact on national credit growth next year.

With this step, it is hoped that there will be no unintentional side effects from stopping the credit restructuring policy on economic growth in Indonesia.