Govt to pay some of Asiatic, BDB depositors

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government has decided to pay initial compensation of only Rp 250 billion (US$29.4 million) to 124,000 depositors of recently dissolved Bank Asiatic and Bank Dagang Bali (BDB), a finance ministry official said.

Director general for financial institutions Darmin Nasution announced on Friday that the decision was made because the government had only finished verifying the deposits of that amount covered under its blanket guarantee scheme.

BDB has 408,000 depositors, while Bank Asiatic has 22,000.

The decision was also made to avoid a potential loss of some Rp 1.1 trillion (US$129 million) in public funds if the government decided to pay all of the two banks' obligations.

Darmin explained that BDB had up to now handed over assets worth only Rp 900 billion to the government, and Bank Asiatic only Rp 300 billion -- totaling only Rp 1.2 trillion.

"Obligations of the two banks, meanwhile, amount to some Rp 2.3 trillion, so there is still a shortage of some Rp 1.1 trillion, which could possibly end up being at the expense of the state," he said.

Darmin, however, said that the House of Representatives had approved the government using funds from its 502 reserve account for the compensation scheme. The government has some Rp 13 trillion in the account.

Compensation payments, Darmin continued, would begin on Monday as scheduled, and would be conducted by Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI).

"We will start with depositors owning accounts of up to Rp 2 million," he said. "They can come to any appointed BNI branch office and show their identity cards to claim their deposits."

Bank Indonesia's (BI) senior deputy governor Anwar Nasution said that BI would request that the two banks' owners and shareholders hand over more assets to cover their total obligations.

"The owners and shareholders of the two banks must surrender their private assets," Anwar said. "If needs be, we will confiscate their houses."

Meanwhile, publicly listed Bank Permata and state-owned Bank Mandiri announced on Friday that they had funds in the dissolved Bank Asiatic and BDB.

In their reports to the Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX), Permata said that it had Rp 10 billion (US$1.17 million) in BDB, while Mandiri had Rp 18.46 billion in BDB and Rp 13.27 billion in Bank Asiatic.

Both banks, however, said they were not concerned about the funds, since the government had pledged to pay up all of the dissolved banks' obligations to their depositors and other related third parties.