Five New Financial Services Authority Board Members Appointed as Series of Challenges Awaits
Jakarta — Five newly appointed members of the OJK board face a series of pressing challenges requiring immediate attention.
Josua Pardede, Chief Economist at Bank Permata, believes the arrival of new OJK leadership is crucial for restoring market confidence. Following various dynamics in the financial market in early February, the market requires swift, decisive, transparent, and consistent regulatory leadership in the financial sector.
“Regardless of who the new OJK leadership is, we hope this becomes a positive momentum amid what we witnessed in January and early February, when there was a clear need for leadership to restore market confidence,” he stated during a public presentation at his office in Jakarta on Thursday (12 March 2026).
The primary challenge involves accelerating capital market integrity reforms to strengthen governance and credibility of Indonesia’s capital market. This can be achieved through improved transparency of share ownership data, investor classification, raising the minimum free float threshold, and share ownership surveillance.
“I also see that the newly appointed OJK leadership has mentioned forming a task force for capital market integrity reform, which I believe is particularly important,” he added.
According to Pardede, the regulator must ensure banking asset quality remains sound as credit distribution increases, preventing future problems. The OJK should also accelerate the transmission of Bank Indonesia’s reference rate cuts to banking interest rates, enabling banking intermediation to function more optimally in supporting economic growth.
Furthermore, the authority must strengthen oversight of the banking industry, particularly vulnerable segments such as rural credit banks (BPR) and regional development banks.
“The fact that we are seeing the revocation of licences for several BPRs demonstrates that micro-level oversight remains crucial,” he noted.
Other challenges include strengthening cyber risk management, consumer protection, and ensuring the banking industry consolidation process proceeds smoothly, particularly regarding compliance with minimum capital requirements, without undermining public confidence.