BTN expects profits to rise

BTN expects profits to rise

JAKARTA (JP): Bank Tabungan Negara (BTN), the state-owned bank specializing in housing credits, expects its net profits to rise by 25 percent this year to Rp 211 billion (US$90.6 million).

"Based on a strong performance last year, we expect to expand our total lending by approximately Rp 2.9 billion this year," BTN's president, Widigdo Sukarman, told the House of Representatives' Commission V on finance and banking yesterday.

"Therefore, our total assets are expected to grow by 14 percent to Rp 10.8 trillion by the end of this year," Widigdo said.

The bank's total assets grew by 39 percent to Rp 9.5 trillion last year and net profits increased by 31 percent to Rp 169 billion.

Widigdo said that BTN's total outstanding credits would reach Rp 7.9 trillion by the end of this year and housing credits will probably account for 89 percent of the total.

As of Dec. 31, 1995, BTN's housing loans were Rp 7.8 trillion, given to more than one million borrowers.

Six percent of the total housing credits were allocated for the purchase of 101,633 very-low-cost houses and the remaining 64.8 percent for 962,630 low-cost houses.

Widigdo said that last year's profit increase was due mainly to a significant credit expansion in 1994 as well as an increase in loan repayments.

"Moreover, we were able to reduce our problem loans to only 0.11 percent of the total outstanding loans," Widigdo added. (08)