Minister Ara to Combat Loan Sharks with Housing Credit Programme

Minister of Housing and Settlement Areas (PKP) Maruarar Sirait believes the Housing Credit Programme (KPP) or People’s Business Credit (KUR) for Housing can be a way to suppress the practice of loan sharks in Indonesia. The KUR Perumahan programme is intended for MSME developers, contractors, and building material traders with a 5% interest subsidy, a financing ceiling of up to Rp5 billion, and can be revolved up to Rp20 billion. The programme also targets MSMEs from various types of businesses to purchase, build, or renovate houses used to support business activities, with a 6% interest rate and a financing ceiling of up to Rp500 million. “With this, there should be no more opportunity for loan sharks to operate in Indonesia,” said Maruarar, who is often called Ara, during a presentation at the OJK’s Radius Prawiro Tower in Jakarta on Monday (6/7/2026). He believes a nation as large as Indonesia should be able to overcome the problem of loan sharks through collaboration among various stakeholders. Ara hopes the OJK can issue policies that make the public no longer dependent on loans from loan sharks. “How can a nation this big not defeat loan sharks? We should be ashamed. A nation this large, with so many intelligent people, with so much authority given, for decades cannot defeat loan sharks,” he said. In line with this, the OJK is optimising its Financial Information Service System (SLIK) to support President Prabowo Subianto’s three million houses programme. Steps being taken include accelerating the updating of credit data in SLIK from 1.5 months to just three days and implementing a threshold of Rp1 million for debtor information in SLIK. Ara previously stated that the KUR Perumahan allocation for 2026 has been increased to Rp50 trillion, up from the previous Rp36 trillion. “We increased the KUR Perumahan allocation from Rp36 trillion to Rp50 trillion, as decided today by Coordinating Minister Airlangga. This means President Prabowo’s programme is very successful,” Ara said when met by journalists at the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs on Monday (22/6/2026). Ara said the increase in the KUR Perumahan ceiling was due to disbursement reaching Rp19.2 trillion, or 54.6%, as of 20 June 2026. He also revealed that the subsidised mortgage interest rate remains at 5% even though the benchmark interest rate or BI Rate has increased.