BRI sees no urgency for significant rate hike despite BI-Rate increase
Jakarta (ANTARA) - PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk or BRI has not yet seen an urgent need to raise interest rates significantly in the near term, despite a surge in the benchmark interest rate (BI-Rate) over the past month.
“If we look at long-term interest rates, we currently see no need to raise interest rates significantly,” said BRI’s Group Head of Liquidity and Funding Management, Teguh Sulistyono, during a media discussion in Jakarta on Thursday.
He added that the company is currently benefiting from its broad customer base. At BRI, some customers are sensitive to interest rate changes, while others tend to follow market interest rate levels.
The company acknowledged it has started receiving requests for special rates from some customers. The BI-Rate increase is also seen as potentially prompting adjustments from the banking sector.
Teguh added that BRI’s business transformation to become a more digitally oriented and transactional bank has also strengthened the company’s funding structure.
The company’s cost of funds in the first quarter of 2026 stood at 2.3 percent, lower than the 3 percent recorded in the same period the previous year. Additionally, the current account saving account (CASA) ratio remained solid, reaching 68.1 percent in the first quarter of 2026.
Meanwhile, BRI’s SEVP of Transaction and Retail Funding, Trilaksito Singgih, views that changes in market conditions and liquidity will still encourage adjustments in the banking industry.
On the other hand, the company is striving to maintain credit cost efficiency so it can offer competitive lending rates to the public, particularly to the micro and small-to-medium enterprise (SME) segments.
“Yes, there have been requests for special rates. But most importantly, what the public needs to understand is that we want to have an efficient cost of credit so we can offer good lending rates to the community,” said Singgih.
He also said the company has prepared various scenarios to anticipate future changes in liquidity conditions. Liquidity is a key factor in the banking business, so any changes in market conditions will be continuously monitored and responded to as needed.
For context, Bank Indonesia (BI) has raised the benchmark interest rate significantly over the past month. During the Board of Governors Meeting on 19-20 May 2026, the BI-Rate was increased by 50 basis points (bps), marking the first adjustment after being held at 4.75 percent since September 2025.
However, the rupiah exchange rate continued to weaken, touching Rp18,000 per US dollar, prompting BI to raise the rate by another 25 bps through a weekly Board of Governors Meeting on 9 June 2026, outside the regular schedule.
Most recently, on Thursday (18/6), the central bank decided to raise the BI-Rate by a further 25 bps during its monthly Board of Governors Meeting. This brought the cumulative increase to 100 bps within a month, putting the benchmark rate at 5.75 percent.
According to BI records, the lending rate in May 2026 was 8.72 percent, while the one-month deposit rate stood at 4.26 percent.