Within the scope of a BMZ-backed project to promote a decentralised financial service offer by the regional development banks (BPDs) the Sparkassenstiftung für internationale Kooperation (Savings Banks Foundation for International Coopertion) has rendered support to selected regional development banks and their umbrella association ASBANDA since 2010.
In the previous year, Sparkassenstiftung succeeded in gaining a further important project partner with the BPD Central Java (in Indonesian: Bank Jateng). The BPD Central Java is one of the largest development banks in Indonesia. Its business area comprises 39 million inhabitants. During the past months, the cooperation work with this BPD was formalised and expanded by opening a project office in the provincial capital of Semarang and officially signing of a Memorandum of Understanding.
Cooperation activities focus on introducing a microloan product for micro and small enterprises and implementing the appropriate credit technology. Following the successful pilot phase, Sparkassenstiftung and BPD Central Java are now striving to intensify the training and further education of loan officers and introducing the microloan product across the board within the BPD’s entire area of operation.
In addition to that, the project partners plan to implement the haptic Micro Business Game developed by Sparkassenstiftung to promote the financial and economic basic education of micro and small enterprises in the province of Central Java. In so doing, synergy effects are to be created with the existing microloan product. By improving the population’s basic level of financial literacy the two project partners intend to increase the demand for microloans and decrease the level of loan losses.
The regional development banks are owned by the provinces and local district governments of Indonesia. Thus, they have a public mandate to promote the regional economic development – similar to the German Sparkassen (savings banks).
Further information is available <link http: www.sparkassenstiftung.de en projects region ost-und-suedostasien projekt foerderung-eines-dezentralisierten-finanzdienstleistungsangebotes-der-regionalen-entwicklungsbanken>here.
Contact partner:
Mr. Thorsten Bosker / Ms. Christina Heuft
Sparkassenstiftung für internationale Kooperation
Simrockstraße 4
53113 Bonn / Germany
Phone: +49 228 9703-6633/-6618
Fax: +49 228 9703-6613