Indonesian Sharia Banks will Struggle in ASEAN Free Trade
23 April 2014 11:56 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The national Islamic banking industry is shadowed by fear that it would not be able to compete with other ASEAN countries by the time the ASEAN Economic Community (2015) is launched next year. The fear stems from the fact that Indonesian Islamic banks have smaller capitals and lower competitiveness compared to a number of banks in neighboring countries in Southeast Asia.
"If by next year we still don't have large-scale Islamic banks, the market will be dominated by Malaysia and Singapore," secretary general of the Islamic Banking Society, Syakir Sula, said yesterday.
Syakir also said that, on average, national Islamic banks have a core capital between Rp1 trillion to Rp5 trillion, way below neighboring countries' sharia banks that have core capitals of more than Rp30 trillion.
The smallness of our Islamic banking industry is also seen from the market share of just five percent; far below Malaysia's 25 percent. "Of course this is a threat," said Shakir.
Shakir hopes that State-Owned Enterprises Minister Dahlan Iskan's discourse to have one strong Islamic bank will come to realization soon. One way is by merging the subsidiaries of SOEs involved in the sharia industry. "We have to merge them and increase their capital so that the bank could have at least a status of Book III (having a core capital of Rp5 trillion to Rp30 trillion)," he said.
Dahlan said that the business scale of several state-owned Islamic banks such as Bank Syariah Mandiri, BNI Syariah, BRI Syariah, and BTN Syariah, is still very small. "I am now looking for ways for us to have an Islamic bank that is bigger than Malaysia's," he said.
ANANDA PUTRI | FAIZ NASRILLAH | UKKY PRIMARTANTYO (SURAKARTA) | RR. ARIYANI