REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Chairman of the Board of Commissioners (DK) of the Financial Services Authority (OJK) Mahendra Siregar said OJK blocked 4,921 bank accounts in order to eradicate online gambling. OJK also continues to educate the public about the dangers of online gambling.
“Several steps have been taken by OJK to deal with online gambling, namely blocking 4,921 accounts from the data we received sent by the Ministry of Communications and Informatics,” Mahendra said in a press conference on the results of the May 2024 OJK Board of Commissioners Monthly Meeting in Jakarta, Monday (10/6/2024).
In addition, OJK also asked banks to close accounts that are in the same customer identification file (CIF). Such efforts are made in order to maintain the stability of the financial services sector.
Mahendra said OJK has instructed banks to carry out verification, identification and Customer Due Diligence including tracing and profiling of the names of account holders who are indicated to carry out transactions related to online gambling.
OJK has also included a list of customer accounts related to online gambling transactions into the Information System of the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Funding Prevention Program (SIGAP) so that it can be accessed by all financial services institutions and narrows the online gambling players' room and addresses information asymmetries in the financial services sector.
Preventive efforts are also made on the side of public education related to online gambling. OJK also asked the financial services industry to proactively identify and verify accounts with suspicious transactions including online gambling activity.
On the other hand, Mahendra said the increase in credit risk especially in the small and micro credit segments was driven, among other things, by the segment not fully recovered after the end of the restructuring relaxation due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and driven by the rise in food inflation globally.
Nevertheless, banks have taken an anticipatory step through the establishment of adequate reserves including for write-offs in order to reorganize bank balance sheets.
With this anticipated move, small and micro credit risk is expected to remain at a maintained level and banking performance is able to grow sustainably.
“The FSA continues to closely monitor risk management and prudential principles in the good provision of credit by the banking industry,” he said.