Bank Central Asia

The First Five Decades

BCA was first founded on 21 February 1957 as Bank Central Asia NV. A lot of things have happened since then—the most significant of all being perhaps the Asian monetary crisis in 1997.

Although this crisis had a tremendous impact on Indonesia’s entire banking system, in particular it affected BCA’s cash flow and even threatened its survival. Panic rush forced the bank to seek assistance from the Indonesian government. The Indonesian Banking Restructuring Agency (IBRA) took over BCA in 1998.

Thanks to its management’s business sagacity and shrewd decision making, full recovery was accomplished later in the same year. In December of 1998, third-party funds were back at the pre-crisis level. BCA’s assets stood at Rp 67.93 trillion, as opposed to Rp 53.36 trillion in December 1997. Public confidence in BCA was fully restored, and BCA was released by IBRA to BI in 2000.

Subsequently, BCA took a major step by going public. The IPO took place in 2000, selling 22.55% of BCA’s shares that were being divested by IBRA. After the IPO, the agency still controlled 70.30% of BCA’s total shares. The second Public Offering took place in June and July of 2001, with IBRA divesting an additional 10% of its interest in BCA.

In 2002, IBRA divested 51% of its BCA shares through a strategic private placement tender. The Mauritius-based Farindo Investment, Ltd won the tender. Today, BCA continues to strengthen its tradition of good corporate governance, full compliance with regulations, sound risk management and the commitment to its customers both as a transactional bank and an institution for financial intermediation.