Micro Arrears No Longer Impede Mortgages, BTN Boss Reveals New Strategy

The Financial Services Authority (OJK) has recently issued a policy to remove records of arrears for low-income earners (MBR) under Rp 1 million from the main display of the Financial Information Service System (SLIK). This new regulation is seen as a concrete effort to break the chain of bureaucratic obstacles that have long hindered thousands of potential debtors, especially for People’s Housing Credit (KPR). This issue is not new, but its scale has sharply increased alongside the explosion in the use of paylater services and digital loans among the lower middle class. Many potential buyers of subsidised homes, who have fundamentally healthy financial profiles, are held back by “past sins” in the form of small arrears that are sometimes caused by technical application issues or administrative oversights. OJK Commissioner Chairman, Friderica Widyasari Dewi, emphasised that this adjustment is made to support the target of building 3 million homes without neglecting banking prudence principles. Through this policy, the SLIK system will only display credit records with accumulations or outstanding balances above Rp 1 million. For the banking sector, particularly KPR specialists like Bank BTN, this policy demands adaptation of more precise risk management strategies. President Director of PT Bank Tabungan Negara (Persero) Tbk, Nixon LP Napitupulu, responded to OJK’s step. For Nixon, profit growth and credit expansion must go hand in hand with asset quality improvement and operational efficiency. In his analysis, Nixon stressed that although there is regulatory leniency on the SLIK side, banks must still maintain credit scoring quality. With this OJK policy, Bank BTN can shift its focus from automatic rejections due to micro arrears to more comprehensive assessments of repayment capacity. One of the most crucial points in this reform is the acceleration of settlement data updates. For years, the main complaint from potential debtors has been the waiting period for name clearance, which can take months after the debt is settled.