Bank BNI to handle repayment of depositors

Bank BNI to handle repayment of depositors

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government has appointed Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) to repay
the depositors of the recently closed down Bank Asiatic and Bank
Dagang Bali (BDB), who are covered by the blanket guarantee
program, a finance ministry official said.

The decision was made as BNI had fulfilled two requirements,
namely, tendering the lowest fee for the service and having
enough branch offices to implement the compensation scheme, the
Ministry of Finance's director general of financial institutions,
Darmin Nasution, told reporters on Thursday.

The government had previously been considering two other
state-owned banks, Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) and Bank Mandiri,
besides BNI, to act as payment banks for the depositors.

"Both BNI and BRI said they would not charge a fee and have
enough branch offices. BRI, however, had previously requested a
fee of 1 percent and was too late in submitting its final offer,"
Darmin said.

Darmin asserted that there would be no concessions for BNI,
such as the automatic transferring of existing accounts at the
two banks to BNI.

"BNI can ask the depositors if they want to transfer their
accounts to BNI, but they must not oblige customers to do so," he
said.

Darmin, however, said that from past experience, most
depositors in closed-down banks usually took the safe and easy
option of transferring their accounts, rather than withdrawing
their deposits in cash.

Darmin further said that the funds for the payout would be
taken from the Rp 40 trillion (US$4.7 billion) worth of
contingency funds stashed in the government's Account No. 519,
although the exact amount that would be disbursed to BNI would
not be determined until all the accounts with the two banks had
been verified.

The state comptroller (BPKP) is currently verifying the
accounts in an attempt to weed out fraudulent ones or those
belonging to depositors affiliated to the banks' owners.

Bank Asiatic currently has 2,200 depositors, while BDB has
408,000. Depositor funds in the two banks amount to some Rp 2.39
trillion.

Bank Indonesia (BI) shut down the two banks last week due to
their irredeemable financial circumstances, which were caused by
illegal transactions worth Rp 1.2 trillion in loans.
Investigations by the authorities are now under way with a view
to the bringing of prosecutions against those responsible for the
transactions.