Bank Mandiri Persero Tbk PT : Strengthens its Hong Kong Business

Jakarta, 27 October 2014 - Bank Mandiri continues to develop its business in Hong Kong so as to support Indonesian companies doing business in the territory and Hong Kong companies doing business in Indonesia. Through its Hong Kong office, Bank Mandiri extended loans amounting to USD 161.6 million from the start of the year up to the end of September, an increase of 22% over the same period last year (USD 131.7 million). Meanwhile, loan quality was maintained with an NPL ratio of 0%.

"This achievement is a concrete example of the company's commitment to growing with Indonesia, including through the development of our overseas business," said Bank Mandiri Hong Kong General Manager Dikdik Yustandi.

He said that Bank Mandiri Hong Kong also provided export and import trade financing services amounting to USD 406.5 million during the first nine months of the year, up from USD 385 million during the same period last year. By strengthening its trade finance business in Hong Kong, Bank Mandiri hopes to boost Indonesia's international trade.

In addition, Dikdik said, Bank Mandiri Hong Kong was also growing its remittance business, with total remittances handled from the start of the year up to the end of September amounting to USD 27.7 billion. Remittance transactions conducted through Bank Mandiri include incoming / outgoing remittances denominated in USD, Euros, Japanese Yen, Hong Kong dollars, and rupiah remittances that were sent mostly by migrant workers in Hong Kong.

The number of remittances sent by Indonesian migrant workers through Bank Mandiri Hong Kong during the first nine months amounted to 42,596 and were worth more than Rp143 billion. Of the 150,000 Indonesian migrants working in Hong Kong, about 33,266, or 22%, have savings accounts with Bank Mandiri in Indonesia.

Dikdik said that Bank Mandiri Hong Kong not only handled migrants' remittances, but also encouraged migrants to save so as to be able to start their own businesses when they return home. Consequently, some 90% of the remittances are transferred to the migrants' Bank Mandiri savings accounts in Indonesia.

As an expression of its concern and appreciation for Indonesian migrant workers in Hong Kong, Bank Mandiri regularly provides entrepreneurship training as part of the "Mandiri Sahabatku" program, which is intended to help migrant workers develop the necessary mindsets, attitudes, skills, knowledge and creativity that is needed to start up and run their own businesses when they return to Indonesia.

Since the program was first launched in 2012, more than 3,000 Indonesian migrant workers in Hong Kong have benefitted, many of whom have successfully applied the knowledge they gained upon their return home by becoming entrepreneurs and creating jobs.

Dikdik said that Bank Mandiri would continue to pursue a variety of strategies to improve services, such as making its remittance offices more convenient places for migrant workers by ensuring that they can conduct transactions in the same way as they would in Indonesia, opening remittance offices at 8 pm on Sundays so that the migrants have the rest of the day free for other activities, and designing and implementing other programs that benefit Indonesian migrant workers.