Bank Mandiri's achievement during the past decade is indeed a success story in itself. This bank that resulted from the merging of four government banks, which were dissolved due to the economic crisis in 1997/1998, is able to keep moving forward and create an entirely new and sophisticated institution.

Resources are continuously improved, specifically talent, system and infrastructure technology issues that are the best and world class. On the other hand, it is obvious that investments in these fields will bring the company to a higher level with greater strength. Bank Mandiri itself has now become the largest bank in terms of assets. One of the things that they are continuously trying to improve is retail banking, because it can be said that there are still many banks that are well-known as dominant players in this segment. So what are Bank Mandiri's plans in the future to face this challenge? The Marketeers team was fortunate enough to be able to schedule an exclusive interview with Budi Gunadi Sadikin, Micro & Retail Director of Bank Mandiri. This interview was held as the Financial Minister Agus Mardoyo was still the President of Bank Mandiri.

Marketeers:
Last year, we wrote for the Kompas 100, and our writing regarding Bank Mandiri was entitled, "Promising Dominant Multispecialist Bank." Would you please explain a little of what "dominant multispecialist bank" means? Does it take the form in which Bank Mandiri will become the largest bank in any category, or maybe Bank Mandiri does not need to be the largest one? Maybe the second best player, but is always a consideration for the number one player?

Budi Gunadi Sadikin:
There is a reason behind the "dominant multispecialist bank" term. As we were forming the new team, we were called by Sugiharto, who said, "Budi, please help Agus to make Bank Mandiri into a bank that is respected throughout Asia." From there, we knew that there is a term in banking called market chain, where the larger the market chain, we are able to use it as currency to buy banks. So as the merger acquisition took place in Asia's banking, we wanted to make sure that we were in the Top 3 or Top 5. So what strategy did we use? We had to be dominant in every banking segment that exists, because as that time, Bank Mandiri is considered to be leaning more towards corporate banking.

For corporate banking, Bank Mandiri has the highest profit but Citibank and HSBC holds the credit card market. BCA is dominant in savings, and we even lost to BNI in 2005. In terms of mortgage loans, Niaga and BTN are the big players. From this observation, we knew that we are only strong in corporate banking. We won't improve if we are depending on corporate banking alone. We need to develop and improve in other businesses in order to be number one in Indonesia and number three or two in Asia. That is the origins of how the term ‘dominant multispecialist banking' came about in the effort to be the best in every aspect of banking that exist. Not only in corporate banking, but in credit cards, savings, retail banking, micro as well. Why do we want this? Because with this, we will be able to be the best in Indonesia and compete with others in Asia.

A full version of this article in Bahasa Indonesia can be read in our July 2010 edition of Marketeers.