"That is a good idea. Indonesia does not have a big bank especially to compete in the ASEAN region," he said here on Monday evening.
He admitted that it was indeed still a discourse and has not yet yet been confirmed by the government.
However, he said, as a country with the biggest economic potential in the region Indonesia indeed needs a bank with a huge capital to compete to carry out intermediary functions in the region.
"We must enlarge them first to meet the capital requirement so that we, as the biggest economy in the Asean region, would have a quite huge bank that would compete in the region," he said.
Bank Mandiri is one of the banks in Indonesia that has the biggest assets and is ranked 9th in the Asean region. The bank has been proposed to be given Rp5.6 trillion in capital participation from the government through right issues.
The capital participation is given with the aim of making Bank Mandiri to be included in the Qualified Asean Banking. One of the requirements for QAB is having capital equal to that of other ASEAN regional banks and core capital adequacy ratio of 17.5 percent by 2019.
The executive director of Bankers Association for Risk Management (BARa Indonesia) Pardi Sudrajat, has expressed support to the merger idea.
"If they are not merged the two banks would compete in the same area competing for funds and credits while they are all owned by the government," he said.
He said Bank Mandiri and BNI operate in the same field and compete the same market share. In view of that, he said, the merger would give a good impact.
"If competition between state-owned banks is continued the market will be hurt," he said.
reporting by indra arief pribadi
(T.I029*C005/H-YH/S012)
(T.SYS/B/KR-BSR/S012)
Editor: Kunto Wibisono
Copyright © ANTARA 2015
