Lippo bank responds

Lippo bank responds

In response to Mrs. Yuni Trianingsih's letter to Bisnis
Indonesia also covered by The Jakarta Post on Jan. 16, 2001,
please allow me to respond on behalf of Lippo Bank.

We at Lippo Bank appreciate customer comments because it
highlights the continual need to improve our services, products,
and communication with our customers.

As to the issue of a 3 percent charge imposed by the Mandala
Airline Agent, I am pleased to confirm that Lippo Bank Visa
Electron cards have "no" client charges. Banks earn revenue from
card transactions by receiving a "Merchant Discount" on the
product ticket price so there should not be any additional
charges added to the normal price of the airline ticket. The
merchant discount goes largely to the bank through whom the
merchant has processed the transaction not the card "issuing"
Bank which in this case is Lippo Bank. I can only suggest that
Mrs. Yuni should address the charges issue with the travel agent
concerned.

Mrs. Yuni should also be pleased to note that Lippo Bank is
the only major bank which charges "no" fees on its Savings
Account products. Our client base increased by 500,000 customers
since July 1999 through the success of our "Shining Savings
Program" which promoted our zero fee savings products.

As to the non-operation of our ATMs in Melawai and two other
centers, we have reviewed the ATM availability and all three ATMs
were fully operational. Their non-availability over the 24 hours
on Dec. 18, 2000 was only 45 minutes. That being said I must
sincerely apologize to Mrs. Yuni and other customers who were
also inconvenienced as we did have a processing delay caused by
our operations department's decision to process a very large
amount of other data in preparation for the year end. This
resulted in time delays for the ATM payment requests being longer
than normal. If the request is not processed within 60 seconds,
the withdrawal request will be "declined" and it may have
appeared that the ATM was not working.

Currently Lippo Bank has 268 ATMs. Throughout last year, we
prioritized efficiency and performance improvements for our ATM
Network. Availability and performance improved significantly from
pre 1999 levels. Like all banks in Indonesia, we have more work
to do. That being said, Lippo Bank will be introducing some major
improvements to our ATM Network, features and performance this
year. Throughout 2001, we will introduce 400 new "State of the
Art" ATMs into our network, increasing our network size to 700.
All existing ATMs will be upgraded. When combined with the ALTO
network, we will offer our clients access to over 2,500ATMs
throughout Indonesia.

Lippo Bank openly admits that we are not perfect and problems
do arise. However, Lippo Bank and myself are fully committed to
improving all areas of our operations. Our objective is to become
the first Indonesian Bank to introduce "International Best
Practice Standards" in all areas of the Bank. The process of
improvement commenced in January 2000. Considerable progress has
already been achieved. Lippo Bank is today trading profitability
with very strong liquidity and capital positions.

I can assure all of Lippo Bank's customers that our new logo
and catch phrase " A Change That Makes A Real difference",
reflects our commitment to improve, and reflects the very real
achievements made last year. Please be assured that the
improvement process in ongoing.

IAN B. CLYNE

President Director and CEO

Lippo Bank

Tangerang, West Java