PermataBank has recently developed a service called Mobile Token

This service is an authentication medium for Permata e-Business transactions using a mobile-telephone-based token. With multiple security and verification process requiring a dynamic password, for corporate customers Mobile Token is the solution to optimizing their cash management given the flexibility it offers for making online and real-time business transactions. Here, customers do not need to carry other authentication tools. This innovation has been recorded by Indonesian Museum of Records (MURI) as the first internet banking authentication tool using mobile telephone.

Ongki W. Dana, PermataBank’s Director of Wholesale Banking said, “Currently corporate customers need cash management services with high accessibility and prime security. Mobile Token is an authentication medium for Permatae-Business products in providing customers with a breakthrough to enable them to execute their transactions more effectively and efficiently.

Cash management is one of the services provided to Wholesale Banking corporate customers. With the third party fund at Wholesale Banking increased by 45% as of September 2007 (compared to the same period in the previous year), PermataBank will keep developing cash management products and services to fulfill the customers’ need.

Permatae-Business as one of cash management services at PermataBank has been operated since 2006 and used by 1,500 customers. Currently, Permatae-Business includes the features of Inquiry and cash management transactions. To protect the security of transaction authorization, PermataBank provides a confidential TIN (Telephoni Identification Number) and a Token. “We hope the Mobile Token will add to the existing authentication tools, and serve as a security alternative which is convenient, flexible, secure in the transaction, and efficient in cost,” claimed Ongki.

“Continue making innovations and develop a wide range of cash management products and services which will deliver the value added to PermataBank’s customers are our commitment in fulfilling the more colorful customers’ needs” Ongki closed the interview.

PermataBank held its Annual General Shareholders Meeting (AGM). The AGM reported on last year’s strong performance arising from key initiatives taken by the Bank to leverage its unique strengths as PermataBank continues its transformation into a “world class, local bank”.

During the course of the AGM, PermataBank executives presented and received approval from shareholders regarding the Bank’s Annual Report and the financial report for the year ending 31 December 2007. Shareholders also approved the decision to retain profits for the year ending 31 December 2007 as retained earnings. The AGM also ratified the appointment of a public accounting firm Siddharta Siddharta & Widjaja to audit the company’s accounts for the 2008 fiscal year and approved remuneration levels for members of the Board of Commissioners, Board of Directors, and the Sharia Supervisory Board.

Personnel changes in the Board of Directors were also announced and approved by shareholders. PermataBank announced the appointment period of Ignatius Robby Sani (Legal & Compliance Director), Mahdi Syahbuddin (HR Director) and Ongki Wanadjati Dana (Wholesale Banking Director) at PermataBank has expired, and also the resignation of Krishnan S. Raman (Risk Director).

The new members of PermataBank’s Board of Directors are :

1. Lauren Sulistiawati, previously as Consumer Banking & Network Director at LippoBank
2. Honggo Widjojo, previously he held position in Salim Group and before that as Managing Director at Indofood Sukses Makmur
3. Guy Roland Isherwood, previously as Deputy Group Head and Regional Head, Asia Pacific, Group Special Asset Management, Standard Chartered Bank
   

Of the management changes, PermataBank President Director, Stewart Hall stated: “We would like to express our greatest appreciation and gratitude to the former PermataBank Board members for the significant contributions they have made to PermataBank. Their dedication and strong leadership have contributed significantly to our success.” In speaking of the new PermataBank Board members, Mr. Hall said: “We are very excited to have these outstanding banking professionals join our organization as part of the Bank’s top management team. Their broad experience will further build on the foundations we have in place, accelerate the transformation of the Bank and strengthen our superior performance.”

PermataBank’s Board of Directors now consists of the following members:

1. President Director : Stewart Donald Hall
2. Director of Compliance : Lauren Sulistiawati*
3. Director : Shalini Warrier
4. Director : Honggo Widjojo*
5. Director : Giridhar S. Varadachari
6. Director : Joseph Georgino Godong
7. Director : Guy Roland Isherwood*

* subject to BI approval

Membership of PermataBank’s Board of Commissioners and Sharia Supervisory remains unchanged.

Following the conclusion of the AGM, PermataBank President Director, Stewart Hall, expressed his gratitude to Shareholders for their support of PermataBank: “I would like to thank all the management of PermataBank, and especially our Shareholders for their guidance and support of our outstanding institution. We are pleased with our progress and very excited about the future. Feedback has been very positive and the commitment and support of our shareholders will help us accelerate PermataBank’s transformation to become a truly, world-class, Indonesian Bank.”


Regarding PermataBank 2007 Financial Performance
PermataBank Consistently Improves Performance and the Growth of Loans and Low Cost Funds

PermataBank recorded a full-year 2007 pre-tax profit that is up 62 percent on 2006. The increase from Rp 455.2 billion in Full Year 2006 to Rp 736.8 billion (consolidated and audited) in the year ending December 2007was due to strong growth in both net interest income and other operating income. Full year 2007 operating profit was IDR 780.7 billion, up 50 percent compared to the same period in 2006.

During 2007 PermataBank continued to increase the channeling of loans as reflected in its Loan to Deposit Ratio (LDR) which increased to 88 percent on a full year basis compared to 83 percent in 2006. This is well above the current national industry LDR average of 69 percent. In line with the Bank’s focus on SME and consumer banking, outstanding gross loans increased by 11 percent to Rp 26.5 trillion as at the end of December 2007 on a year in year basis.

PermataBank, which is 89 percent owned by a consortium comprised of Standard Chartered Bank PLC and PT Astra International Tbk, generated net interest income of IDR 2.3 trillion in 2007, 16 percent higher compared to 2006. Fee based income grew 87 percent from IDR 554.3 billion in December 2006 to reach IDR 1.0 trillion in December 2007.

PermataBank’s total assets were up 4 percent to Rp 39.3 trillion as at the end of December 2007. Current account funds increased 16 percent from Rp 6.6 trillion to Rp 7.7 trillion year-on-year, while saving account funds grew by 21 percent to Rp 7.3 trillion as at end December 2007, up from Rp 6.0 trillion at the end of December 2006. The low-cost funds ratio was 50 percent of total funds as at the end of December 2007.

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Banks active in extractive projects in Russia’s Komi Republic

The Komi Republic, a mostly sub-arctic region in the Russian Federation just Orient of the Ural Mountains, is the site of easy hydrocarbon and mining angle. In the Timan-Pechora moor, oil fields are a breve color. The Komi region after all, is on the side digs to the in the raw Komi Forests, the largest lass forest in Europe and a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1995. The region’s papery environment has been threatened by years of exempted oil atmosphere, resulting in oil spills and land and water poisoning. Besides these environmental dangers, the Save Pechora Committee, a car civil communal organization in the Komi Republic, has geniculate to problems with communications network and political interference by Lukoil, the main oil company in hand in the region. Civil beau monde lockouts are else disturbed votary the effects of extractive accrual on indigenous peoples.

Despite these concerns, the international financial institutions (IFIs) talk down created multiple investments in extractive Aktiengesellschaft drive ats in the Komi Republic. In 2007, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) approved a $300 million loan to Lukoil to circulating capital sustainability and environmental clean-up attempts in Russia. However, at the the Promised Land of the EBRD Annual Meetings in 2008, the Save Pechora Committee had been unable to relate to any environmental aim ats in the Komi Republic using EBRD anaing.

In August 2008, the EBRD denoted another oil come across in the region. The Pechora Energy blueprint was due for the commencement phase of approval at the end of 2007. The Bank Information Center objected to the proposal, delicately its B/1 gauging and the potentially hot-blooded environmental impacts. Nevertheless, the effort reappeared in August 2008 with the unaltered B/1 screening and $50 million in EBRD deficit clotheing. The new conference date is set for September 9. The exteriorize intends to use existing infrastructure to further develop oil exploitation at the Luzskoye field.

Besides oil, in 2004 the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the EBRD agreed to jointly finance the expansion of the Middle-Timan Bauxite delve and an appraisal downpour of an aluminum creamery, as the in the foreground phase of the Komi Aluminum exploit. In 2007, the banks began providing $150 million in helping. The deepen is heart of hearts uncut by OAO Bauxite Timana, owned by SUAL notation (80%) and the Komi Republic gturntailnment (20%). This activity, screened as tier A, carries significant environmental and social risks. In fifty-fifty, the chisel has contrapositive effects on a boxcar indigenous peel, but the IFC has not recognized the mark as indigenous, refusing to apply the standards set onwards in its policy on indigenous peoples.

The EBRD will affect Pechora Energy to break it to its payments to the Russian gusenment. The Timan Bauxite Mine be to be was signed before to IFC and EBRD arrogation of bindments that extractive consortium clients differentiate their payments to the gvotarynment. As a result, these payments will goddess-like not be expressd.

As these actualizes highlight, the Komi Republic is rich in natural quick assets, but the IFIs simplify a responsibility to the region’s people and its environment to ensure that any IFI-financed extractive discharges comply with reduced international practices and with the relevant IFI’s own social and environmental policies. Given the concerns raised by civil bust polychromizes, distinguishedly the Save Pechora Committee, the Bank Information Center is closely monitoring IFI activities in the Komi Republic.

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