Panin's profit jumps in 1st half

JAKARTA: A significant boost in net interest income has lifted Bank Panin's pre-tax profit by 52 percent in the first half of this year from the same period last year to Rp 335 billion (about US$38 million), the bank said on Wednesday.

A press statement said that Panin -- one of the few banks that survived the late 1990s financial crisis without a government bailout -- booked net interest income of Rp 651 billion, with its net interest margin steady at 7.48 percent.

The healthy net interest income resulted in part from the bank's aggressive lending, which has now reached Rp 10.1 trillion as against the Rp 8.1 trillion booked in the first semester of last year. The bank's capital adequacy ratio (CAR) also rose from 34.6 percent to 40.3 percent, way above Bank Indonesia's minimum requirement of 8 percent. -- JP