This year we acknowledge the transformation under way at Bank BTN, also known as Persero.
As the only housing-focused bank in Indonesia, with mortgages making up 89% of its loan portfolio, Bank BTN acts as an accelerator for the government’s One Million Houses programme, which was launched in 2015 as a solution to a national housing backlog thought to stand at 11.4 million homes.
As the main distributor of government-subsidized mortgages, Bank BTN is well placed to be an agent of this state ambition, but its work has been impeded by Covid-19: the pandemic damaged economic activity and therefore individual purchasing power, reducing the demand for new mortgages and the ability to keep up payments on existing ones.
Consequently, BTN’s non-performing loan ratio is, at 4.37%, the highest among national banks. Tight liquidity has also made life difficult, and BTN faces a relatively high cost of funds.
![Haru Koesmahargyo BTN.jpg](https://assets.euromoneydigital.com/dims4/default/753402b/2147483647/strip/true/crop/400x400+0+0/resize/800x800!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Feuromoney-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F3d%2F89%2F5994fcce4aa0b599ce93e1e269f4%2Fharu-koesmahargyo-btn.jpg)
BTN has therefore set about a transformation programme that aims to make it the best mortgage bank in southeast Asia by 2025.