Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —
In an effort to strengthen the national economy, the Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani, emphasized the importance of financial inclusion for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Indonesia. Therefore, he hopes that PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk through AgenBRILink will be able to penetrate even the smallest communities.
At the BRI Microfinance Outlook (BRI-MO) 2024 event at the BRILiaN Tower, South Jakarta, Thursday (7/3), he assessed that banking’s outreach to MSMEs had not been maximized, which was the main focus, considering the significant contribution of this sector to the economy. Apart from access, other problems faced by ultra-micro business actors are: affordability.
“I hope that BRI will penetrate through the BRILink Agent and that it doesn’t even need a building to operate, the agent is also identical to the shop owner,” he said in a written statement, Friday (8/3).
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On this occasion, Sri Mulyani invited BRI to expand access to financing to the 29 million people who are still untouched. This is because even though the number of MSMEs in Indonesia is very large, only around 15 percent have succeeded in penetrating the export market.
According to him, one of the main obstacles faced is financing problems, with around 29.2 million MSMEs having difficulty accessing banking services.
“We have to move from 15 million to 45 million MSMEs that are covered by financial services, so that no one is left behind,” he added.
On the same occasion, the President Director of BRI, Sunarso, said that as an effort to reach a wider community in order to encourage financial inclusion, the company had prepared a strategy hybrid bank via AgenBRILink.
“So then we also developed our network, our network which was previously in the form of branches, then sometimes people were reluctant to come to the branch, they preferred to come to their neighbors, they wanted to go to a shop, so our shop was converted into a branch, that’s what we call AgenBRILink,” he explained.
Currently, he continued, BRI has 741 thousand BRILink Agents with transaction volume reaching IDR 1,400 trillion.
“AgentBRILink is an example of BRI’s transformation strategy to always implement its strategy inline with concern “national economic development that does not just grow but is also equitable,” concluded Sunarso.
It is hoped that BRI’s steps will not only increase financial inclusion but also empower MSMEs to develop and contribute more to the Indonesian economy.
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