Reality check reveals winning formula

The Indonesian banks that best coped with the 1997 crisis were focused on retail and small business customers. Now those banks that are restructuring are intent on the same sector.

LAST YEAR MANOJ Nanwani, a research analyst at BNP Paribas Peregrine, had almost completed the depressing task of surveying the distressed Indonesian banking sector when he stumbled across a nugget in the dross. “It’s a real bank!” he announced to his clients, proof that there was still a flicker of life in the country hit worst by Asia’s 1997 financial crisis.

The commendable bank was a small regional operation based in Java, one of a select group that came through the crisis almost unscathed.

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