Bank Bali announces profit rise

Bank Bali announces profit rise

JAKARTA (JP): PT Bank Bali announced yesterday that its gross profit increased by some 35 percent to about Rp 130 billion (US$56.5 million) last year and its total assets increased by 38 percent to about Rp 6.5 trillion.

"The final figure is actually still in the process of being audited," the company's Deputy President Firman Soetjahya told the press yesterday on the occasion of its 41st anniversary.

He said that the growth of the bank's credit expansion was about 24 percent, mostly for housing projects.

Replying to a question on the bank's credit expansion plan after the government's tighter monetary policy, Firman said that the bank is reevaluating its strategy.

He predicted an upward trend in bank interest rates in the near future.

Bank Indonesia, the central bank, increased the banks' reserve requirement to three percent from two percent last month in a move to limit credit expansion in the country.

Bank Bali, bearing the name of Bank Persatuan Dagang Indonesia when it was founded, now has 126 branch offices throughout the country and two others in the United States, as well as a subsidiary in Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review magazine, in its latest issue, named Bank Bali one of the ten biggest banks in Indonesia.

The bank yesterday presented scholarships worth Rp 48 million (US$20,800) to 40 students from 20 universities in celebration of its' anniversary. (kod)