BNI prioritises business transformation to boost national economic contribution

The bank aims to maintain credit growth and expand to blue-chip customers.

PT Bank Negara Indonesia (Persero)

Tbk, or BNI, strengthens its position to augment its contribution to the national economy through a series of transformation and business expansion activities.

BNI is committed to maintaining a credit growth level of around 7%-10% by the end of 2022, with the corporate banking segment as one of its growth engines.

Director of Corporate & International Banking

BNI Silvano Rumantir said BNI observes how corporations have become more adaptive and resilient, thereby becoming the catalyst of economic recovery. BNI primarily targets top customers in each corporate sector and their value chain and business partners.

BNI also focuses on expanding to blue-chip customers by deploying its strategic policies articulated in the Bank’s Business Plan (RBB) whilst observing prudent risk management.

“The business growth of corporate customers creates significant multiplier effects to the economy in the long run and can create a sustainable business portfolio for the Bank,” said Silvano.

On the back of those strategies, in the first half of 2022, BNI reported Rp311.2 trillion of outstanding corporate credit, or up 8.28% yearon-year, which was mainly driven by the growth in the blue-chip corporate segment.

The same strategies earned BNI three awards from the Asian Banking and Finance (ABF). In 2022, BNI was recognised as the Indonesia Domestic Project Finance Bank of The Year as well as Debt Deal of The Year and Project Infrastructure Finance Deal of The Year.

According to Silvano, the momentum of channelling corporate credit in BNI will continue in the second half of the year. He is confident that the Bank can unlock many more opportunities, especially in the corporate segment.

“The domestic consumption growth, which is fairly strong, will compel companies in different sectors to expand their businesses. This is aligned with the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) that stays above 50, which indicates that companies, in general, are in the expansion phase,” Silvano explained.

Strategic Expansion Plans

With respect to tactical portfolio allocation, BNI considers the FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods), telco, and health as the sectors with substantial growth potential despite their defensive risk approach.

“At the same time, we need to stay alert to the global economic development in which impacts are starting to reach Indonesia, especially in terms of currency volatility and imported inflation that we have started to see in fuel products,” he continued.

Silvano also pointed out the increasingly complex business needs of corporate customers that have gone global. BNI is aware that it needs to offer beyond plain vanilla solutions, design more sophisticated solutions, and step up its Investment Banking capability.

Building a Strong Global Network

Today, BNI has succeeded in completing the operational preparation of BNI Sekuritas in Singapore. The Bank is also attracting global talents specialising in syndication and investment businesses in its overseas branch offices. The comprehensive solutions that evidence BNI’s transformation have placed the Bank as a superior player across products such as payment and collection, supply chain financing, trade finance, bank guarantee, and remittance.

These products are available on the Bank’s digital platform, BNIDirect, for corporate customers and their value chain to create better economies of scale.

“Our international business expansion is one area that we are going to continuously explore in order to optimise our global network and to establish an ecosystem in the global market for our corporate customers and their value chains, which we expect will generate more revenues for BNI,” Silvano said.

According to Silvano, BNI has the DNA of corporate banking that actively supports the expansion of its corporate customers to Go Global. To date, BNI’s overseas branch network comprises Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, London, New York, Osaka, and Amsterdam.

“We are certainly going to consistently strengthen our network. With the capacity that we have today, we expect we can better address the more complex needs of our corporate customers,” he said.

Moreover, BNI’s global network offers tangible strategic values, s uch as access to funding from efficient global capital markets and competitive financing facilities in foreign currencies to support the international expansion of Indonesian companies as well as the business operations of Indonesia-related companies abroad through end-to-end solutions. “BNI’s products are diverse and can be tailored to a customer’s needs so that the customer can gain the economies of scale that benefit its business,” Silvano said.

To enable its customers to Go Global, BNI supports the customers’ marketing and business development activities in the international market by facilitating foreign direct investment (FDI) of multinational companies in Indonesia. Often, BNI involves global networks to participate in business matching activities between local customers with potential overseas buyers or suppliers.

“Ultimately, we expect these strategies to generate stronger revenues. We also envision that our position, as a leading national bank with a global capacity, will be further cemented in the next five to ten years as we develop a solid international client base,” Silvano concluded.