Best bank: Bank Mandiri
Bank Mandiri, Indonesia’s largest bank by assets, achieved a record net profit of $3.6 billion in 2023, an impressive 34% year on year rise – the highest in the industry and significantly outpacing the other four tier-one banks. Led by president director Darmawan Junaidi, it retains the award for Indonesia’s best bank.
Bank Mandiri’s loan book reached $90.7 billion in 2023, an impressive 16.3% annual increase. This has further solidified its position as the largest lender in Indonesia, with a 19.7% market share. The bank’s success can be attributed to its multi-segment loan portfolio, which covers wholesale, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as individual customer segments, with wholesale loans accounting for the largest portion at 52%.
Earlier this year, Fitch Ratings upgraded Bank Mandiri, acknowledging the bank’s lower impaired loans and high loan-loss provision buffer. Its non-performing loan (NPL) ratio stood at 1.2% in December 2023, comparing favourably to its domestic peers and demonstrating a significant improvement from the 1.92% ratio a year earlier. The bank’s broader at-risk loans have also fallen below pre-pandemic levels. Simultaneously, Bank Mandiri’s NPL coverage ratio increased by 41 basis points year on year, reaching an impressive 326%, the highest among tier-one banks in Indonesia.
Bank Mandiri’s digital transformation is unmatched in Indonesia. The bank’s five-year roadmap has laid a solid foundation for its digital infrastructure by modernizing distribution channels and enabling data-driven decision making. The cornerstone of this strategy is the bank’s wholesale digital platform, Kopra, which is complemented by the retail app Livin’ by Mandiri, offering a comprehensive digital banking experience to its customers.
Best investment bank: UBS
The acquisition of Credit Suisse’s Indonesian operations pushed UBS to the top of the country’s investment banking league tables this year. Boasting an impressive 30% market share, UBS’s trading volume is unrivaled among brokers in the country. The bank’s ability to secure and execute a wide array of landmark deals makes it Indonesia’s best investment bank.
In M&A, UBS served as the exclusive financial adviser to MUFG Bank and its consolidated Indonesian subsidiary Adira Finance on the acquisition of an 80.6% stake in Mandala Multifinance for $470 million, a landmark inbound M&A deal in Indonesia’s auto financing sector. The bank also advised on the sale of a significant minority stake in Samator Indo Gas, Indonesia’s leading gas company, to CVC for $155 million and acted as the exclusive financial adviser to Primaya Hospital Group for the investment from GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund.
UBS also played a pivotal role in several high-profile equity capital market transactions. The bank acted as a joint global coordinator and joint bookrunner on Cinema XXI’s $150 million IPO, the largest cinema player in Indonesia and the biggest media IPO in southeast Asia in the last decade. UBS also served as the sole bookrunner for MAPA’s $66 million secondary sell-down. Other notable deals included Merdeka Battery’s $618 million IPO, Trimegah Bangun Persada’s $650 million IPO, and Pertamina Geothermal Energy’s $608 million IPO, where UBS was the sole global coordinator.
In the debt capital markets, UBS acted as the sole deal manager on the tender offer by Bumi Serpong Damai, one of Indonesia’s largest property development companies, to repurchase its outstanding 5.95% dollar-denominated notes.
Best international bank: Citi
Citi saw impressive growth in its FX and corporate banking loan business segments in 2023 and was involved in a number of key transactions and product launches in Indonesia.
The bank counts more than 500 multinational customers and 250 top-tier local corporates as clients in Indonesia, and in 2023 it saw corporate banking loan growth of 18%.
Cit was involved in a number of important billion-dollar deals in 2023, including a senior unsecured revolving credit facility in Indonesia’s machinery industry and another in the country’s infrastructure sector. Additionally, the bank arranged a $30 million distribution financing program with Syngenta Indonesia.
The bank increased the volume of business through its Citi FX platforms by 35%.
Best digital bank: Bank Syariah Indonesia
Bank Syariah Indonesia’s (BSI) continued investment in its digital offering in 2023 has generated impressive growth figures across its mobile and online platforms.
A full account-opening process can be completed in less than five minutes through BSI’s mobile banking app. Investment features such as gold purchases and state shariah securities investment products helped the bank reached 6.31 million registered BSI Mobile users by December 2023. Transactions made through the app increased by 155% to 316 million in 2023, while the bank saw its fee-based income from digital channels grow by 9% in 2023 to reach Rp991 billion ($60.7 million).
BSI introduced the Ziswaf (zakat, infaq, sadaqah and wakaf) service on the BSI Mobile app to allow users to donate to more than 10 charitable programmes. This feature saw over 10 million transactions in 2023, representing 6.92% growth year on year.
The bank saw online onboarding increase from 46% in 2022 to 86% in 2023, while mobile banking transactions grew from 48% to 61% of all transactions in 2023.
Best bank for SMEs: OCBC NISP
OCBC NISP proved an invaluable partner to its small and medium-sized enterprise clients in Indonesia throughout 2023 with the launch of its Nyala Bisnis 2.0 platform and initiatives to empower women-owned SMEs.
The Nyala Bisnis 2.0 platform gives SME customers the ability to open a business account digitally and integrates account services with 13 foreign currencies. The bank ran workshops, sharing sessions and coaching clinics to ease SME clients onto the new platform.
OCBC focused on women-owned SMEs through two initiatives. First, it had supported more than 1,300 female SME customers by the end of December 2023. Secondly, the bank launched its Women Warriors campaign, which offers women business applicants special benefits such as free access to the bank’s Nyala Bisnis platform, loan facilities with special rates and resources tailored to help women entrepreneurs run their businesses.
These initiatives helped boost the banks SME loan book above Rp26 billion ($1.6 million) and the number of SME customers to above 54,000 by the end of 2023.
Best bank for ESG: DBS
DBS had a busy 2023 in its efforts to drive sustainability in Indonesia. It played a key role in the completion of large sustainability-linked deals in the region and introduced initiatives including a sustainability council, investment in local social enterprises and the proactive reduction of the carbon footprint of its internal business practices.
The bank’s green credit portfolio grew to Rp6.1 trillion ($373 million) in 2023 thanks to several notable green deals. These include a S$700 million ($516 million) sustainability-linked syndicated term loan facility for Sarana Multi Infrastruktur, a $16 million green trade facility with PT Indomobil Sukses Internasional and a $100 million syndicated green loan for the State Grid Corporation of China.
In 2023, the bank published a report detailing its decarbonization commitments. It has reduced its own carbon emissions by 12% year on year by installing solar panels in several branches and ran a programme of purchasing carbon credits to support renewable energy projects.
As part of its efforts in driving impact beyond banking, the DBS Foundation awarded Rp8.2 billion to four Indonesian social enterprises in 2023.
Best bank for corporate responsibility: Bank Rakyat Indonesia
In 2023, Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) invested in a wide arrange of programmes that sought both to empower Indonesians and address climate change.
BRI’s Scholarships for Outstanding Children programme gave out 1,800 scholarships in 109 BRI supported villages. Furthermore, the bank continued its BRI Peduli programme, with 36 women’s business groups being directly supported in 2023. The bank also initiated its halal certification and digital marketing training programme, which provides halal certification assistance to 200 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and gives them the tools to sell their goods.
The bank’s efforts to help fight climate change include emissions-reduction initiatives such as the increased use of electric vehicles – BRI operated 118 electric vehicles and 150 electric motorbikes by the end of 2023 – and launching the BRI Menanam programme, which planted 904,196 trees with the goal of absorbing 780,606 kilograms of carbon. Emission reductions in 2023 saw decreases among Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions – down 1.29%, 1.22% and 7.02%. respectively.
BRI’s sustainable business portfolio in 2023 grew to total Rp777.28 trillion ($47.6 billion), including Rp690.43 trillion in business loans to MSMEs, Rp82.32 trillion in green lending and Rp4.54 trillion in environmental, social and governance-based corporate bond investments.
Best bank for diversity and inclusion: Bank BTN
Bank BTN is the main distributor of government subsidized mortgages in Indonesia. It has helped to drive the One Million Houses programme launched by the Indonesian government as a solution to the country’s housing backlog. The programme provides affordable housing finance and has been operating in Indonesia since 2015.
In 2023, BTN received an additional subsidized mortgage quota of 182,000 units worth Rp26.7 trillion ($1.6 billion), with an average mortgage value of Rp147 million per unit.
Through the BTN Housing Finance Centre, the bank assists prospective new developers through a learning and advisory programme.
Best bank for corporates: Bank Mandiri
Bank Mandiri’s headline programme last year was the launch of Kopra by Mandiri, its wholesale digital platform for corporate clients. Combined with various cross-selling initiatives, it saw the bank achieve impressive financial results in 2023.
Kopra gives clients access to liquidity management, payments, foreign exchange, working capital loans and export-import transaction tools. The value of transactions conducted on Kopra reached Rp19,100 trillion ($1.17 billion) by the end of 2023.
A notable feature of the new wholesale platform is Kopra Trade, which boosted export-import transactions in 2023, with trade transaction values on the platform reaching Rp528 trillion. It also saw bank guarantee transaction volume of Rp104 trillion. The platform had a market share of 24.4% in trade transactions and 32.6% in bank guarantees respectively.
Mandiri disbursed Rp75.9 trillion in working-capital loans to wholesale customers in 2023, marking 18% year-on-year growth. By leveraging its corporate customer network to cross sell its payroll offering, the bank achieved a market share of 18.64%.
