"Credit growth is set at 7 to 9 percent until the end of the year. It has been revised down from 8 to 10 percent," the banks head of macro-prudential policy department, Filianingsih Hendarta, said here on Wednesday.
She stated that the credit demand, in general, was indeed not reviving until August, but it is believed to increase during the rest of the year.
In view of that, Hendarta believed that the growth of bank credits would reach the upper side of 7 to 9 range.
She remarked that the credit sector which showed an increase was the housing credit (KPR), adding that the distribution of KPR grew 9.66 percent year-on-year, which was higher than the overall credit growth in the industry of 8.26 percent.
KPR has grown due to the impact of relaxation of Loan To Value policy since September 2016, in addition to the lower credit interest.
"KPR has already revived," she added.
Regarding credit growth in 2017, the chairman of the Financial Service Authority (OJK), Wimboh Santoso, revealed on Tuesday that he had indeed seen a change in bank business plan since mid-2017.
Initially, OJK saw a credit growth at 13 percent and later it was later reduced to 11 percent. This month, it was again revised down to 10 percent.
"It seemed hard to reach 11 percent until the end of the year. We have seen that it could reach around 10 percent," she explained.
Wimboh pointed out that until September, several banks still concentrated on restructuring their problem credits and so they could not freely conduct expansion.
"After we monitored them closely, we found that some were still seeking to restructure their credits; for example, those categorized as commercial ones in the form of working capital," he elaborated.
Wimboh stressed that it would take 1 to 1.5 years for the banks to achieve normal growth. "We predict it would take 1 to 1.5 years to overcome the non-performing loans. We predict they will decline gradually," he reiterated.
Until September 2017, bank credit growth stood at 7.8 percent year-on-year according to OJK. (*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2017
