JAKARTA: Two Indonesia's state-controlled lenders, BNI and BRI, plan to open new branch offices in countries which serve as centre of domicile of Indonesian workers overseas. This new establishment hopefully will ease fund transfer process and wealth management.The service called remittance or fund transfer from foreign countries to Indonesia is barely enough for those foreign workers, said President Director of PT Bank Negara Indonesia Tbk, Gatot M. Suwondo.Those high-skilled workers require full banking services, ranging from loan until wealth management. We plan to open new branches in countries serving as foreign workers main concentration, he said yesterday.Those countries include Japan and Korea. We cannot provide our services unless we establish our branches there. Yet, when we are about to open new branch there, the process is very difficult.As a matter of fact, Indonesia never complicates any process when foreign banks are willing to open its branches in Indonesia. Thus, regulators, both Bank Indonesia and the House must encourage other countries to employ reciprocal principle, said Gatot also serving as Head of State-Owned Lenders Association.Currently, BNI owns five overseas branches, they are, in Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York and London.In the meantime, BRI plans to establish new branches in remittance-concentration countries such as Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and United Emirate of Arab.Such branch office will be full branch office supposes it has prospective business opportunities, said President Director of BRI Sofyan Basir. At the moment, our remittance branch offices are located in Kuala Lumpur, Saudi Arabia and United Emirate of Arab. If the market is prospective, we are going to establish new full branch offices, he said.At the moment, BRI has already had two full branch offices in New York and Hong Kong. The lender faced quite significant problem when opening its branch in New York.The sole problem is we face numerous limitations there. Sorry to say but the treatment is totally different with the way government treat any foreign banks willing to open new branch in Indonesia, he said.Thus, he expects the origin countries of several foreign banks in Indonesia may grant particular leniency. (T02/NOM)
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