Bank Universal's lending up

Bank Universal's lending up

JAKARTA (JP): Publicly-listed Bank Universal extended Rp 350
billion (US$43.7 million) in new loans and booked Rp 11 billion
in net profits (unaudited) in the first quarter, the bank's
president, Stephen Z.Satyahadi, said over the weekend.

"These developments reflected both the nascent economic
recovery and the stronger health of our bank after its
recapitalization last June," Stephen added.

Almost all major banks stopped lending in 1998 and most of
1999 as their capital base became negative due to huge amounts of
bad credits and punitively high costs funds.

Stephen said most of the new lendings went to the retail
sector, notably small businesses and consumer financing.

He added that Bank Universal had steadily strengthened its
capital adequacy ratio (against risk-weighted assets) to 4.65
percent and had expanded its customer base with total deposits of
Rp 9.1 trillion.

"As our home-phone banking service has been expanding rapidly,
we are geared up to introduce Internet banking to further improve
our customer service," Stephen added.