REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- A micro bank, PT Bank Perkreditan Rakyat Syariah (BPRS) or Shariah People Credit Bank of Bhakti Sumekar in Sumenep, is supporting local value in running its business.
The bank was established in 2002 and targeted to be a host and focus its service in the region of Sumenep, East Java.
"In addition to offering innovative products, we will touch the sentiments of local values," Director of Operations of BPRS Bhakti Sumekar , Riyanto to ROL in Jakarta, recently.
BPRS Bhakti Sumekar also applied psychological elements as a marketing strategy.
Riyanto cited in mortgage products; if one pawn a product to the pawnshop, then someone else will know the he was in a need of money pressurized him to pawn the goods.
The condition is sometimes makes him to be shame. On the other hand, if he pawns it in a particular BPRS, his image that is in a need of money will not be visible.
"Our marketing strategy must adjust to the target market. Psychological element of a marketing strategy is suitable for the micro market. They cannot accept the theoretical market strategy," he said.
The adoption of local value, he said, will be internalized either to employees or to the local community.
"We want the community to be proud of their own bank," he said.
As it is known, BPRS Bhakti Sumekar is a local government owned company (BUMD) of Sumenep District.
Current assets reached Rp314.2 billion. Financing capacity reached Rp242.6 billion, consisting of 70 percent of general consumer and 30 percent for micro sector.
BPRS Bhakti Sumekar committed to developing social economy. The bank clients are mostly housewives and small traders who are not touched by commercial banks.
According him, the bank philosophy is to develop local social economy.
"Looking ahead, Bhakti Sumekar will be oriented to the micro sector and will reverse the majority portion to microfinance," said Riyanto.
He said each local government should have their own microfinance institutions, realizing that local governments are itself a captive market.
Microfinance institutions for regional governments could provide consumer financing support for civil servants that has been targeted by conventional commercial banks.
In addition, microfinance institutions are also useful for the development of social economy.
"For local governments, it's useless if it have not their own micro bank. The suitable legal form for it is BPRS," he said.
BPRS Bhakti Sumekar optimized savings and deposit products. Its deposit products are quite competitive, which is able to provide a rate 9.15 percent annually.
Although the profit is quite interesting, until now many people do not understand the importance of Islamic microfinance.
Sumenep is populated by Muslim majority; but it did not affect people to understand about Islamic economics.
"Moreover, Muslim who usually engaged in business, only prefer to be a profit-oriented consumer," he said.
To improve the situation, BPRS Bhakti Sumekar cooperated with several Islamic boarding schools to insinuate the important of Islamic economics.
"Our Sharia Supervisory Board (DPS) is the caretakers of a boarding school, so we asked for their help to socialize sharia product to society," Riyanto added.
Currently, BRPS Bhakti Sumekar has one branch and 15 cash offices. The bank has received a capital injection of around Rp60 billion from local government of total capital of about Rp90 billion.
Ed: Nidia Zuraya
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