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.