Jakarta. Bank Indonesia (BI) sees no indication that banks are taking excessive risks despite credit growth accelerating beyond the central bank’s 8–12% target range, as lending expansion remains supported by strong banking capacity and manageable credit risks.

Bank credit grew around 13.58% year-on-year as of July 2026. However, Bank Indonesia’s Director of Macroprudential Policy Department Alexander Lubis said the faster pace of lending did not necessarily mean banks had become more willing to take on greater risks.

“I don’t see it that way. It is more that there is now room for lending to be expanded further,” Alexander said over the weekend.

Financial reports showed that lending at several major banks, which have become key contributors to the industry’s credit growth, accelerated sharply.

Bank Mandiri (IDX: BMRI), for instance, reported Rp 1,595.85 trillion ($89.92 billion) in bank-only loans as of July 2026, up 19.4% year-on-year.

State-owned Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) (IDX: BBNI) posted even faster loan growth of 27.01%, bringing its lending portfolio to Rp 969.94 trillion. The credit expansion at both state-owned banks significantly outpaced overall industry growth.

Meanwhile, Bank Central Asia (BCA) (IDX: BBCA) recorded Rp 1,000.88 trillion in loans as of July, representing growth of 8.38% year-on-year.

Combined, the three banks had extended Rp 3,566.67 trillion in loans, up 17.95% year-on-year, faster than the banking industry’s overall 13.58% growth.

Despite the rapid lending expansion, the banks have also increased their loan-loss provisions.

BNI allocated Rp 5.43 trillion for impairment, up 33.09% year-on-year, while Bank Mandiri’s impairment provisions rose 19.75% to Rp 4.79 trillion. BCA’s provisions remained flat at Rp 1.91 trillion compared with July 2025, although they increased from the previous period.

Alexander said Bank Indonesia had not found evidence that stronger lending growth was being driven by banks taking greater risks. Credit quality across the banking industry, he said, remained under control.

This was reflected in manageable non-performing loan (NPL) ratios, while the sectors receiving new credit had not shown particularly worrying risk characteristics.

“In terms of credit risk, NPLs are also not particularly high,” Alexander said.

Low Base Effect
Alexander also said the 13.58% credit growth figure should be viewed in the context of the relatively low growth base in the previous year.

“Growth of more than 13% is also partly because last year’s figure was relatively low. It is not necessarily because growth is excessively high. Because the base last year was low, the current figure appears high,” he said.

Bank Indonesia therefore sees current credit growth as a combination of stronger lending expansion and a low-base effect from July 2025.

Alexander stressed that the central bank had yet to find signs that banks were becoming more willing to take risks as a result of Bank Indonesia’s policies aimed at boosting financial intermediation.

“We have not seen such indications,” he said.

Bank Indonesia has continued encouraging banks to expand lending to support economic growth. Bank credit grew 13.6% year-on-year as of July 2026, with investment loans among the main drivers of the expansion.

The central bank, however, continues to monitor the quality of the lending growth, particularly as credit expansion has been outpacing the growth of third-party funds, potentially increasing liquidity pressure for some groups of banks.

Alexander said the banking sector’s capital position remained strong, providing lenders with room to expand financial intermediation without compromising stability.

Diverging Momentum
Stockbit Sekuritas analysts said BCA’s earnings momentum was beginning to accelerate heading into the second half of 2026, with loan growth picking up and its net interest margin (NIM) starting to improve.

“This is relatively different from Bank Mandiri (BMRI), where we believe the strongest growth momentum was already seen in the first half of 2026 and will moderate in the second half,” the analysts wrote.

Stockbit Sekuritas also sees potential upside for the banking sector’s fundamentals as liquidity conditions may prove less tight than previously feared.

The outlook is supported by a declining trend in outstanding SRBI instruments and their yields, the government’s extension of part of its placement of excess budget balances, and the potential for foreign portfolio inflows following the announcement of a more conservative 2027 state budget proposal.

For BNI, Stockbit Sekuritas expects provisioning needs to moderate in the second half of 2026 after the bank built conservative provisions during the first half.

“We believe BBNI remains on track to achieve our 2026 consolidated net profit estimate of Rp 21.1 trillion, and we even see the potential for BNI to exceed that projection,” Stockbit Sekuritas wrote.

Alexander said differences in credit and earnings growth among banks primarily reflected their respective portfolio strategies rather than differences in risk appetite between state-owned banks grouped under Himbara and national private lenders.

“It is more about their respective corporate strategies. We do not see a clear divide between Himbara and national private banks,” he said.

Some national private banks, Alexander said, have opted to maintain more moderate credit growth while focusing on preserving asset quality.

“They may prefer to keep credit growth at around

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