Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Bank Indonesia said banks need to take into account the position of their capital adequacy ratio (CAR) in paying dividends to keep their lending capacity.

Senior Deputy Governor the Central Bank, Mirza Adityaswara said banks, which have CAR, and non performing loan (NPL) or reserve cost ratio poorer than the average should retain more of their net profit.

By the end of January, 2017, the banking industry had a CAR of 23 percent with gross NPL ratio of 3.1 percent.

"Certainly it is better not have too high dividend pay out ratio to improve CAR and strengthen credit supplying capacity," Mirza.

Mirza, however, said the central bank has not regulated a certain size of dividend or other parameters for banks in paying dividend to their shareholders.

He said the Financial Service Authority (OJK) is the right institution to issue such regulation.

"We would not propose anything , Bank Indonesia only wants to see such regulation," he said.

He said banks need to have enough capital to back up their credit expansion this year.

Bank Indonesia and OJK have predicted credit growth is significantly expansive this year with upper limit of 12 percent year-on-year . In 2016, bank credits grew only 7.8 percent (yoy).

Earlier, after the monthly Board of Governors meeting of the central bank in February 2017, Governor Agus Martowardojo said that the central bank planned to issue a policy on dividend.

The regulation to ensure that banks have adequate capital and capital sustainability in 2017 in facing the potentially rising pressure of global and domestic economy.

"We are convinced, payments of divided are something good, but it is necessary to maintain the healthiness of the institution," Agus said.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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