Thank you all for joining us. We would like to begin the meeting now. I would like to mention a few points before we get started. First, for everyone joining us on the Zoom call, I would strongly encourage you to download a copy of our presentation materials currently available either from the investor relations homepage of Bank Rakyat or from the email we sent this afternoon. Second, in the interest of those analysts and investors joining, I'd like to ask all of you to state your name and company when asking questions during the Q&A segment of our call. I would now like to introduce Pak Sunarso, our President Director, to begin the meeting.
Okay. Thank you, Brett. I would like to thank all of you for joining. We appreciate your support of our company as investor and your feedback on our business. I would like to start by discussing our long-term strategy and aspiration to become the most valuable banking group in Southeast Asia and champion of financial inclusion. To achieve this, we need to execute our five strategic initiative. Quality of growth, CASA Sustainability, Optimizing Subsidiary Synergy, ESG implementation, and excellent enablers. We believe that we can grow our high-yielding asset while maintaining credit quality across the portfolio. At the Ultra-Micro level, we will implement varied Micro risk assessment technique at PNM and Pegadaian, and improve portfolio alignment. Beyond high yield, we are employing next generation SME credit risk architecture and a revamp end-to-end wholesale credit system.
We are working to increase our CASA market share by leveraging the most integrated network in Indonesia and our spectrum of segment from Ultra-Micro to high net worth. Utilizing big data, we can follow transaction and fund flows of our clients starting at the Ultra-Micro level. We are improving our retail and wholesale capabilities through digital banking application. We call it BRImo and QLola, and optimizing billing agent utilizing in the Micro segment. We will optimize the synergies amongst our subsidiaries by increasing their business scale as we maximize our network of 72,000 loan officer that can cross-sell between BRI, PNM, and Pegadaian products. On ESG, we will continue to deliver value beyond profit by committing to implement business management principle that adhere to values of ESG in order to positive impact to the community.
While implementing this long-term strategy and its objective, we will from time to time make adjustment due to short-term event in the banking industry. Approximately, half of our businesses focus on Micro and Ultra-Micro customer. This is the largest segment of Indonesian population, representing over 165 million people and includes among 99% of Indonesia's 62 million businesses, a segment of the population that has a high demand for lending products. Through adding PNM and Pegadaian to our portfolio, we move into the Ultra-Micro segment, supporting financial inclusion for the unbanked and educating them on financial literacy before they graduate into the formal banking system. Within BRI and customers' journey in just our Ultra-Micro and Micro segment can now grow from loan as small as IDR 3 million to IDR 500 million. Let's discuss the macroeconomic outlook.
We forecast a modest slowdown of the domestic economy to around 4.5% to 5.2% in 2023 due to a mix of global headwind and slightly softening of domestic consumption activities. We forecast the softening inflation trend will continue in 2023 following the annual Ramadan increase, ending the year at 4% ± 40 basis point. There are still various drivers of domestic growth for 2023, including spending related to the 2024 national election. The rupiah has remained resilient, outperformed peers thanks to foreign capital inflow, the downstreaming of commodities, and elevated commodity prices. Bank Indonesia is likely to maintain the current policies rate with only one additional rate hike of 25 basis point in 2023.
I would like to highlight some recent policies by the regulator and the bank responses. First, since August 2022, BI has raised interest rate by 225 basis points. Second, BI's liquidity normalization plan increased to statutory reserve to 9% while incentivizing bank up to 2.8% for lending to priority sectors such as Micro and SME, KUR, and sustainable loan. Which represent BRI core business, implying we would need to maintain below 7% of statutory reserve. Third, OJK extended the relaxation for COVID-19 loan restructuring to 2024 for specific segment and industry, but there is no impact to BRI, because actually we already ended this policy over 1 years ago. While condition continue to improve, BRI remain cautious on upcoming global challenges.
While it's evident that we are growing in segment that are less impacted by the current global financial event, we wanted to update investor on our liquidity. Our LCR and Net Stable Funding Ratio at 209% and 142%, respectively, are both well above the 100% recommended level. Meanwhile, our loan portfolio is 70% of earning asset, implying that bond movement are much less of an impact to our overall portfolio, especially given the spread between our lending yield and bond yield. Furthermore, our capital position remain elevated with total capital adequacy ratio of 24.98% and tier-one capital of 23.93%.
In first quarter 2023, we saw our CAR decreased by only 53 basis points from fourth quarter 2022 level, despite paying out 85% of our earning as dividends. This was because we implemented Basel III Risk-Weighted Asset measurement for operational and credit risk, which added over 211 basis points to our capital adequacy ratio. Financially, our consolidated number continue to normalize as we move further away from the pandemic. We booked year-on-year loan growth of 9.7%, with our consolidated loan reaching IDR 1,180 trillion. Our proportion of low-cost fund continued to improve, increasing to 64.5% from 63.6% year-on-year, supported by a 36% year-on-year growth in current accounts. Our cost-to-income ratio improved to 41.8% from 42.2% in the years ago period.
Our gross NPL ratio was 2.86% in the quarter, an improvement of 23 basis points from 3.09% year-over-year. Our profitability metrics continue to improve as our ROA increased to 3.4% from 2.9% in the years ago period, and our ROE increased to 21.2% from 17.2% in the first quarter of 2022. Finally, our net profit in the first quarter of 2023 increased by over 27.4% to IDR 15.6 trillion. In our first quarter result, the Board of Directors identified three major strengths and two weaknesses. The first strength was that our Micro portfolio loan growth is being driven by our higher-yielding product in KUPEDES, PNM, and Pegadaian loans.
While growth in KUR has slowed, this drove on non-KUR composition to 60.5% compared to non-KUR composition in first quarter 2022 at 57.8%. The changes in the KUR policy in 2023 are the result of strong collaboration between BRI and the regulators, which enable KUR to more accurately support financial inclusion. Our cost of credit improved to 2.39% as we are realizing improved performance and outlook for our loan at risk. We anticipate cost of the credit will continue to decline throughout the year. Our efficiency continues to improve as we saw the cost-to-income ratio decrease to 41.8% as digitalization has improved our efficiency in generating loan. The key challenges that we identified are a rising of a cost of fund as dividend distribution.
Liquidity need during Ramadan and rising rate lead us to pay up for deposit in the quarter, but this should decrease in second half 2023. The last challenge is the. Although we are deploying capital into loan and dividends for shareholders, driving a modest increase in leverage, but still well below historic and peers level. We feel we are on the track with our guidance for the full year of 2023. As you can see from the result, we are aligned with this target in the first quarter. We would anticipate that our loan growth increase throughout the year.
Our NPL starts to come down to below 2.8%, and that our cost-to-income ratio will pick up from this level to 40%+. I would now like to turn the presentation over to our CFO, Bu Vivi, to discuss the financial in greater detail. Bu Vivi, please.
Thank you, Pak Sunarso. I would like to progress this discussion by walking through our balance sheet and also income statement. First, our total asset increased by 10.5% year-on-year, where the earning asset still become the major contributors and represent 92.5% of our total asset. If you see our cash and also cash equivalent position increased very significant, 65.7% year-on-year. This is basically because of two reasons. The first one, the cash that we have to allocate for the approaching payment date of our dividend. The second reason is the upcoming holiday liquidity preparations. Despite the increase in cash, we also see the highest level of loan to earning asset since 2019. Loan to asset as 1Q 2023 was 70%.
This implies that we are on the right track to grow after the pandemic. I would also want to note that we are modestly increasing our leverage. At 1st quarter 2023, this led to our asset to equity ratio rising to 6.4 x from 6 x. We anticipate that over the next 18 months, we can continue to increase the leverage closer to our peers. Second, if we are talking about our loan portfolio, at the 1st quarter this year, our loans and financing grew by 9.7% year-on-year, slightly below our guidance of 10% until 12%. This is due to seasonality that we typically experience in the 1st quarter of every year. We anticipate that through the rest of the year, we will see our loans outgrow our asset.
In this quarter, the consumer segment has been driving the growth, and not only coming from the consumer business at the parent level, but also coming from BRI Finance as one of our subsidiaries. If we are talking about Micro and ultra Micro segment, these two segment grew in a double digit, driven by PNM and Pegadaian, that grew 24% and around 12% year-on-year respectively. These two new engines help to increase the composition of the Micro segment by 60 basis points year-on-year to 47.7% out of our total loan. We also see a strategic shift toward higher yielding loans, where PNM and Pegadaian now contribute 9.1% from our total loans versus 8.5% last year. KUPEDES, our commercial micro loans, grew 29.3% year-on-year.
This significant growth from KUPEDES has pushed the non-KUR compositions to 60.5% out of our total Micro versus 54.4% in December 2022. We anticipate that in the full year of 2023, the Micro loan growth will be driven by KUPEDES growth of approximately 40% year-on-year. PNM should grow at over 20% year-on-year, and Pegadaian should grow at least 12% year-on-year. Third, we are talking about the deposit. The overall deposit growth continue to remain strong at over 11.4% year-on-year. The growth is driven by CASA. That is up 13%, increasing the CASA ratio by 89 basis points to 64.5%.
Our current account has dominated the growth, and this is not only coming from the wholesale current account, but also, our retail current account. We believe that we are on the right path to transforming our wholesale banking capabilities to play a more prominent role on funding and transactions. In addition to that, we are working now on initiative across the business segment to increase CASA growth and to manage our, cost of fund going forward. This is actually as a part of our aspirations to strengthen our retail banking capabilities. I would like to move to our income statement. We are able to grow our interest income significantly by 15.6%, and this is as a result of our shift to higher yielding loans and some selective repricing initiative on interest rate.
Please note that we also experience an increasing interest rate due to the higher interest rate environment and liquidity preparations for dividend payment and Lebaran. This has been impacting our growth in net interest income, which stood at 7.8% year-on-year. Our reported other operating income increased by 14.3% year-on-year to IDR 9.9 trillion. This represented an increase around 100 basis points year-on-year, our other operating income ratio out of our total revenue actually now is, like, 23.2%. We continue to see strong recovery income, which increased 25% and was supported by a strong recoveries coming from Micro and also small businesses. We also maintain our operating expense where our OpEx grew by 8.6% year-on-year.
The higher OpEx growth continues to be contributed by PNM. OpEx contribution from PNM increased from 7.8% to 12.5% out of our total OpEx. This is something that we already aware of as PNM is still a growing business, and in the future, we expect to see efficiency improvement when PNM reaches optimal size. The combination of better than expected other operating income and also OpEx has led our pre-provision operating profit to grow by 10.3% year-on-year. Our provision expenses book a negative growth around 25% year-on-year as we have a clearer forecast of our asset quality going forward. This led our net income to grow by 27.4% year-on-year. Next, I will touch upon a key financial metrics.
Overall, we continue to see improving key financial metrics as we move further away from the pandemic. While the global economy seems to be slowing down, we are fortunate that a number of drivers remain positive for Rakyat. Historically, our asset quality always peaks in the first quarter and then improves throughout the year. Therefore, we believe that the guidance for our NPL 2.6%-2.8% is still valid. The loan to deposit ratio remains below our optimal level, and we expect a higher level in the second half. I would like to spend some times to explain about our net interest margin dynamics. Our consolidated NIM increased by 10 basis points year-on-year to 7.82% as our improving earning asset mix supported our lending yield to more than offset the cost of fund increase.
Our earning asset yield increased 10.1%, primarily due to our lending yield that increased 45 basis points to 12.8%. This was driven by Micro lending yields that increased more than 100 basis points to 18.6% as we are seeing a positive shift in the composition in our, in our Micro portfolio. We feel this is one of the most important takeaways of the result for Rakyat. We would anticipate that our interest income growth will increase going forward as we realize a higher loan to deposit ratio and higher yielding earning asset. The cost of fund increase in the year-on-year period by 84 basis points to 2.7%.
We feel that the pressure on the funding costs, this quarter was a confluence of issues beyond just rising rates. In the quarter, we paid out our dividend, which was a sizable use of cash, and at the same time, we have to build the liquidity for Ramadan and Lebaran. Despite the dynamics in our NIM, we are seeing our return on asset increase by 44 basis points to 3.38% from 2.94% a year ago period. Our return on equity increased almost 400 basis points to 21.18% from 17.22% in the year ago period. Please note that we might see a slightly lower return on equity in the upcoming quarters due to the normalizations of our equity growth.
We are expecting a decreasing in the cost of fund in the second half. This is positive for our profitability. Together with the discipline in the OpEx management and accelerating income from recoveries, along with the more flexible provisions, we expect that we can continue to see our return on equity increase. Based on this, we anticipate to reach a 20% return on equity in a shorter time. I would like to hand the presentation over to Pak Supari, our Micro Business Director. Thank you.
Thank you, Bu Vivi. I will present the Micro business segment update in three sections. The first section is the progress of Ultra Micro Post-Integration Initiative. The second is a Micro business performance of 1st quarter 2023. The last section is a update of the QR policy in of 2023. I would like to speak about our Micro portfolio and Ultra Micro integration. We have 1,013 co-location outlets, an increase of 150.7% year-over-year. In total, we have a network of over 15,000 outlets, which we will work to optimize through co-location and improve efficiency going forward.
Not only have we been expanding the Ultra Micro network, but we also continue to digitalize for front and back end of the Micro business. We have worked to build up the sales acquisition platform through the launch of SenyuM Mobile. It is currently being employed by our sales force of over 72,000 officer across BRI, PNM, and Pegadaian, while offering mobile access to more than 680,000 BRILink and Pegadaian agent. Through BRI, Pegadaian, and PNM, we serve over 36 million Micro and ultra Micro borrower. I would like to break down our Micro business into two part. The first part is the ultra Micro segment, which includes PNM and Pegadaian, and the second part is Micro segment, which includes KUPEDES, Kredit Usaha Rakyat, known as KUR, and Briguna loan. In area with intense competition, where PNM Pegadaian will compete with one another and peers.
However, in area with less competition, more acute segmentation for target market will occur, so that each company can optimize potential business. Our business growth strategy for PNM focus on women group lending, while at Pegadaian will push growth in the core pawn business. In addition, the adding new KUPEDES customer, we have 10 million KUR customer that we believe is a sizable pool that we can graduate to high, higher yielding commercial KUPEDES over the coming years. Loan outstanding at BRI Micro, PNM, and Pegadaian increased by 11.2% year-on-year to IDR 563.4 trillion. PNM led the growth, increasing by 24.2% year-on-year as the woman lending business saw strong growth of 36.6%. We anticipate that the woman lending business will grow to over 90% of PNM loan by year-end 2023.
KUPEDES increased by 29.3% year-on-year, as our commercial micro product is expected to become a larger portion of total Micro loan in the next few years. Our pawn lending business, Pegadaian, will continue to increase in line with our overall loan book as it more mature industry, but we anticipate efficiency gain here, and the business is leveraged less than 3 x. In total, our borrower have increased to 36 million as PNM borrower growth remain very strong. We anticipate PNM will drive this figure over the next few years. Beyond this, we are aligning the individual lending product known as Fidusia at Pegadaian and ULaMM at PNM with BRI Micro and implementing BRI Micro scoring and risk model for this product.
Within the BRI Micro business, the overall growth is the 1st quarter of 2023 was 9.9% year-on-year to IDR 456.5 trillion. On the quarterly basis, the KUPEDES loan growth increased by 28.3%, and the number of KUPEDES borrower increased by 900,000 of 32.1% quarter-on-quarter as the portfolio growth strategically shifted toward our commercial KUPEDES product. Although we did not disbursement KUR loan until the month of March, we expect the KUR disbursement will increase through the second and third quarter of 2023. Additionally, we expect an impact on loan disbursement in April as the Lebaran holiday limited disbursement. For the full years, we anticipate that KUPEDES will grow by over 30% and could by over 40%, while KUR growth will likely be flat.
Under this scenario, we believe we can still reach 12%-14% Micro loan growth. Shifting the disbursement in the first quarter of 2023, we are seeing KUPEDES disbursement rising to IDR 59.3 trillion, reflecting the execution of our strategy shift to growth in our commercial micro loan. In time of crisis, we implement the strategy of business follow stimulus and safely grow our portfolio as well as customer base, as we saw here for 2020-2022. Now, as we move to a more normal lending environment, we are focusing on commercial micro loan growth. This is shown by KUPEDES disbursement, which increased by 266%, while KUR disbursement declined by 78% year-on-year, respectively, in the first quarter of 2023.
As you can see from the right-hand chart, KUPEDES disbursement were over 90% and total Micro disbursement is January and February when we did not disburse KUR loan. In the month of March, despite our disbursement of KUR, we saw that over 56% of our disbursement were from the KUPEDES product. We have implemented a strategy to support KUPEDES growth that include using big data, our geo-coded system to analyze loan officer coverage area for improved efficiency, enhancement in business processes, and clear product alignment within the Ultra-Micro segment. Recently, the Indonesia government made adjustment to the KUR subsidized lending scheme, which we think provide an aligned policy where KUR loan are provided to first-time borrower. This will focus KUR to directly support growing business that after a few cycle can graduate to commercial micro loan, like our KUPEDES product.
Another feature is that the lending rate of KUR customer will step up each cycle, starting at 6% and then moving up by 100 basis points every cycle. We think this a very positive development in the program for increased financial inclusion and supporting growing business while educating in financial responsibility. We feel that regulation is the result of strong collaboration between BRI, along with the ministry responsible for the subsidy and KUR product. I would now like to hand the presentation over to Pak Agus Sudiarto to discuss about asset quality. Thank you. Please, Pak Agus Sudiarto.
Thank you, Pak Supari. Now I would like to explain our asset quality and give an update on our outlook for the remainder of 2023. As mentioned before, our NPL ratio decreased 23 basis points year-on-year to 2.86% due to improvement in our corporate portfolio in Pegadaian, year-on-year by 170 basis points and 56 basis points respectively. We anticipate that with the loan growth picking up throughout the year and improvement in our Micro portfolio, that we will see a decrease in our NPL ratio. In our special mention loan, we are seeing a slight increase in the quarter on a consolidated basis to 5.20% from 5.02% year-on-year. Pegadaian had an impact on the subsidiary figure, which I will explain shortly.
We would focus more on the bank-only figure, and we anticipate that these numbers start to improve as we move further into the year. On Pegadaian, the business adjusted their pawn financing quality categories to 60 days for NPLs versus 30 days past due as in the past, which is a metric that remain more conservative than the banks. This adjustment led to a decrease in their NPL ratio, but increasing their special mention loan. Our provision for loan and financing increased to IDR 95.2 trillion, representing a year-on-year increase of 3.7% from IDR 91.8 trillion. The modest increase was due to our NPL ratio improving on year-on-year basis. This was the biggest driver of our coverage ratio starting to move closer to normalized level as it decreased to 282% consolidated.
I would note this remain well above our historical coverage level, and over the next 12 months is likely to come down further as loan at risk continues to improve. Looking at the loan at risk, the ratio has declined to 16.4% from 21.7% in the year ago period. Currently, LAR coverage stand at 49.2%, a level that we feel is more than adequate to absorb losses in the portfolio. On the bank-only basis, we saw the COVID restructured loan portfolio decrease to IDR 99.8 trillion. As we analyze the data across the portfolio, we see a likelihood that cost of credit can continue to improving through 2023 and feel confident we will be in line with our guidance of 2.2%-2.4% at the cost of credit.
We expect more payoff within the restructured loan portfolio and see more opportunities for upgrades to performing loans. In the first quarter, we reported 2.39% cost of credit and a net cost of credit of 1.37% while our provision expense reached IDR 6.9 trillion. Our average recovery rate over the last three years is over 50%. Moreover, in this quarter, we recorded higher recovery rate at 65.7%. For 2023, we have a write-off budget of approximately IDR 20 trillion, in line with the 2022 write-off budget. We anticipate our recoveries could be higher in 2023.
In 1st quarter 2023, total outstanding COVID-19 restructured loan decreased to 9.4% of total loans, and 7% of total borrowers from 14.8% and 12% reflects, respectively in the year ago period.
The COVID-19 restructured portfolio totaled IDR 99.8 trillion at the end of the first quarter, representing a decline of 30.8% year-on-year. Of the change in IDR 163.6 trillion, IDR 97.7 trillion or IDR 59.7 was due to loans being paid off, while IDR 45.9 trillion was due to removal of the restructured flag. We did see IDR 17.6 trillion written off, which represent 6.7% of the accumulated COVID-19 restructured portfolio. The portfolio continues to be composed primarily of small and Micro loans that account of 72.5% of the total, and we are seeing the Micro loans returning to performing at a faster pace.
Based on this data, we anticipate most of the Micro loan will eventually have their restructure flag removed primarily due to the repayment of the loan. On the small portfolio year-on-year, IDR 27.6 trillion had the restructure flag removed, and another IDR 24 trillion were repaid. At 1Q 2023, the majority of the COVID restructured loan, or 67.5%, are current in payment, with 21.2% in special mention and 11.3% in NPL. Our COVID portfolio has IDR 27.1 trillion in provision, and this cover 27% of the COVID restructured loan. Currently, we feel this reserve is more than adequate to absorb any losses. I would now like to turn the presentation back to Brett and Tivi, who will handle the question and answer segment. Please Tivi and Brett.
Thank you, Pak Agus Sudiarto. And also thank you to our board of director for participating. We would like now to move to the question and answer segment of the call. If you have question, please raise your hand or write your question in the checks, in the chat section. When call, you can please state your name, company, and also the question. We will answer the question time until 5:00 P.M. Thank you, and let's begin. Oh, okay. The first question coming from Jayden. Jayden, please unmute yourself. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Congratulations on a really good result. I just had some follow-up questions if I can. The first is just on the KUR, the subsidy. Has the subsidy amount been determined? Like, did it stay the same or was changes? Apologies if I missed that from the presentation portion. My second question, also on the Micro space is, have you started to roll out the IDR 500 million for KUPEDES, or is that still sort of an ongoing project? My final question is just on the funding cost. I think, Bu Vivi, you mentioned that there's been an improvement, you know, obviously, in April.
Can you sort of share some more color around how much you've been able to lower deposit rates or, you know, cut special rates by or anything of that nature? You know, how much this is gonna be a benefit as we get through the rest of the year? Those are my questions, and thank you very much.
Thank you, Jayden. We have three question. The first one is talking about the KUR subsidy, whether it is already determined or not, Pak? Yeah. Okay. Bu Vivi, please.
Okay. Thank you, Jayden, for the questions. The first one is about the KUR subsidy. Until now, we haven't get the final subsidy rate from the Ministry of Finance, so it hasn't determined. They already confirmed that if we disperse KUR, like what we did in March, we can still reimburse to them using the previous scheme. Subsidy rate for 2023 hasn't determined yet. The second one for the KUPEDES with a higher ticket size of IDR 500 million, I think we already implement this starting-
New ticket size.
Starting like last year, Pak. We already implement this, Jayden. The last one is about the funding cost. Yes, it's a challenge for Rakyat actually on how we can manage the cost of fund. Looking at the trend of the benchmark rate going forward, we are expecting that our marginal cost of fund actually will start to decline in the second half, aligned with our expectation that the liquidity in the second half will be more ample because of the activities related to the elections activities. Thank you.
Thank you, Bu Vivi. I think, Bu Vivi already answered all your question, right, Jayden? Okay. We move on to the next question. We have Selvi here. Please, Selvi. Selvi, you can unmute yourself.
Hi.
Yeah. Thank you.
Hi. Can you hear me? Right. Thanks, Mathiri. Thanks management, and thanks for the time. I have a couple of question. In terms of the first, in terms of like the KUPEDES, which grew about 40%, Q on Q, what have changed in terms of, you know, like we were just stepping out of COVID, I mean, for a while now, but how do you get to manage to push for the, for KUPEDES, in terms of the interest from the agents and whatnot? That is the first question. In terms of the second question, you mentioned about increasing leverage over time. Is it mainly from higher LDR and also like possibly a higher dividend payout ratio over the next year or so?
Is there like any other things in terms of like the capital management? Lastly, if I could clarify, you mentioned earlier for Pegadaian, there is a reclassification or the changes in the asset quality side for the NPL. I probably missed it. You mentioned that the NPL is now about 30 days or like if it's more than 30 days, it will be classified as NPL, the rest are SML. Could you clarify on that, please? Thank you.
Yeah, please, Bu Vivi.
Okay. Thank you, Selvi. For the first one is how we manage the KUPEDES growth. It's growing very significant. How we can manage the growth. We didn't change any lending rate in KUPEDES, Selvi. The way how we design the growth for Micro actually is we have designed a monthly disbursement guidance for KUR and non-KUR product. This is actually embedded, this strategic guidance actually is embedded as a parameter in the BRISPOT. It helps our Micro loan officers actually on picking the right one in term of asset quality, then picking which product that he or she wants to disperse. It is designed by the head office, injected in the BRISPOT to help the mantri, the Micro loan officers. For the second one, for the leverage, yes.
One of our homework actually is on how Rakyat can bring the leverage level back to the pre-right issue, around 7%. If we are talking about how Rakyat will increase the leverage, the first one, yes, we need to increase the loan growth at least align with the industry. Increasing the loan growth, that the first thing. The second one, yes, you also correct that, we will pay a higher dividend amount. Probably now I can mention 85% probably is the new, temporary, dividend payout ratio for the next 2 until 3 years. That's how we try to manage the leverage.
I don't want to mention about, you know, further about the special dividend because you might also aware that until now we haven't got approval from the government to pay a special dividend, but this is not something that impossible. We still try to negotiate and discuss with the Ministry of SOE. The last one is about the loan quality. Yes, Pegadaian changed about the category of NPL and also the special mention. The NPL now is only around 60 days for the pawn product. So 60 days is about non-performing loan.
Actually, if I may add, Vivi. The NPL is actually, currently we categorize NPL in Pegadaian. If it is, the past due is above 60 days, previously it's actually above 30 days. You see, Selvi, that even this is still more conservative compared to the bank classification.
Yeah. I guess that actually maybe the changes of NPL categories, I think so based on... Because Pegadaian also not only maybe lending through pawnshop pawning basis, but now I think they also grow on non-pawning lending. We call it PNM-based lending. I think the basis to categorize this 60 days actually is only for non-pawn lending. Yeah.
Yeah.
Non-pawn lending.
Yeah. Okay. I think we already answered all your questions, Selvi. Maybe the next question coming from Pak Joshua. Please, Pak.
Yeah. Thank you so much, Sunarso and management team. I have two questions. Firstly, on page 31, asset quality, where I saw these NPL and special mention loans for both Micro and consumer increases year-on-year, including from Q on Q as well. What drives these deteriorations? Is it part of the flow-through from loan at-risk from current into special mention and NPL? At the same time, also see improvement in the corporate loan book, special mention in NPL. Want to get color on this. The second question, again, on the KUPEDES. I mean, you grow number of customers in KUPEDES by 43% quarter-to-quarter, and last year it was only grow by 2%.
It suddenly you found a lot of number of KUPEDES customers that we have been asking for a long time. I think my question is: What is your target for KUPEDES loan growth in 2023, and beyond, within, I'll say, the target, in the 2023 and medium term as a percentage of, loan book or in terms of the loan growth itself? Thank you.
First question, yeah. Okay, Pak.
No, only for the first question.
Okay. Thank you, Pak Joshua, for the question. We will have Pak Agus to respond for the first question, yeah, Pak. The question is more on the NPL. Yeah.
Thank you, Joshua, for the question. I think the first question about the NPL for Micro and small increasing, while in the corporate segment it's decreased. I can respond that this is the cyclical period. For the first quarter, it's usually the NPL reserve is picking up, especially for Micro and small, and then we believe we are confident for the throughout the year will be decreased. While in the corporate segment, there is one big customer pay their obligation to reduce their obligation. That's why our corporate segment is now have a good, fair, better loan quality. First, because there is a NPL customer pay their obligation significantly, and the second, we growth in corporate segment in a good customer. That's the response, Joshua.
Thank you, Pak Agus. The next question is more on the KUPEDES. We see that the KUPEDES growth is like grow significantly in this quarter. Bu Vivi or Pak Supari.
Bu Vivi will respond to the second question.
Sure, Pak.
... because they're related the guidance.
Yes, Pak.
Thank you, Pak Joshua. As I mentioned previously during the presentations, we are projecting that our KUPEDES will grow approximately 40% year-on-year this year, Pak. With using that and also the disbursement of KUR with probably is not full. Probably we will give you a guidance that in term of compositions, by the end of this year, we might expect that there will be around 50%-51% of non-KUR portfolio in our Micro segment.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Bu Vivi, for the answer. I think we currently have the last question. We have Weldon here. Please, Weldon, unmute yourself.
Hi. Can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you, Weldon.
Hi. Yeah, sure. Thank you for taking my question. I have two questions. One is on the LDR, which you said I think you will optimize the LDR later. Now that you have like larger subsidiaries, how do you think about LDR? Do you see it from a consolidated level or the bank-only level? In the same line, I think there was this cost of funds synergy for the subsidiaries that you talked about previously. How is the progress on that? That's the first question.
Okay. Thank you, Weldon. If we are talking about the loan-to-deposit ratio, if we are talking about the bank-only level, of course, our optimal loan-to-deposit ratio, if bank only, is around 90%-92%. However, if we are talking about the consolidated number, it might be higher. Of course, it is higher that rather than what we have in a bank-only level. It's probably like 96%, 98% for the LDR. The second one is the cost of funds synergy. I know we have a slide about that, the cost of funds synergy between Rakyat and also PNM and Pegadaian. If we compare with September 2021 number, at that time, the cost of fund of Pegadaian is roughly around 6%.
As March 2023, as you see, it is slightly increased from December 2022. 2022 is roughly around 4 point something. Now I think it's roughly around 5% for Pegadaian. For PNM, actually, September 2021, right after the acquisitions, the cost of fund for PNM at that time is around 8 point something%, and now it's declining to around 7%. We continue to support Pegadaian and PNM by providing them with funding with more attractive interest rate. Now we focus more on PNM because Pegadaian, they have a larger access in the capital market rather than PNM. That's the plan on how we try to help PNM and also Pegadaian on managing the cost of fund going forward.
Sorry. Thank you, Bu Vivi. It's already answered all your question, well done. You asked about LDR and also cost of fund synergy. Actually, Bu Vivi, we see that there are still one question. Can we take it? Okay. Yeah, another question from Ran Cheng. Ran, please introduce yourself and unmute. Thank you.
Thank you management for taking my question. This is Ran from Brown Advisory. Just one quick one, another follow-up. One is, regarding the cost of funds, going down, declining in H2, could we get some additional clarity in terms of how the liquidity situation expects to unfold, the dynamics of that? The second question would be sort of on the Micro side, in terms of penetration. Remember in the last call, there was talk about there's some saturation on the KUR loan, so wondering how you're sort of thinking about the overall penetration level. Thank you.
Yeah. The questions on the liquidity situation, Bu, and then also the saturation on the KUR area. Maybe, please, Bu Vivi.
Yeah. Hi Ran, thank you very much for the questions. If we are looking at the current conditions, especially, we discussed previously about this, that in term of liquidity in the second half, we are expecting more ample liquidity because we expect more funding related to the election activities. We also see the similar trend in the previous elections that usually in the second half we will have a better liquidity. That will help actually on Rakyat initiative to manage the cost of fund. We also see that the trend of the benchmark rate in the second half where we believe that the central bank actually will start to push more toward on growth.
Probably that there will be only one time increase in the benchmark rate, probably around 25 basis point, and then they start to normalize the interest rate, and this will benefit Rakyat for a lower interest rate environment. That's the first questions. The second question actually is about the saturation study. If we recall last year, we are giving the government a feedback about the saturation study. We saw that in most of the districts, especially in Java Island, the saturations level is pretty much higher. The saturated market actually is one of the reason why BRI choose to grow its KUR quota to only 6% rather than like a double-digit percentage. We are measuring the KUR saturation by looking at the number of household that already has KUR loans.
As of March 20, 2022, BRI has dispersed KUR to 15 out of 100 household. This number increased from 2021 number, where we dispersed KUR to 10 out of 100 household. In 2020, we dispersed to 8 out of 100 household. Thank you.
Thank you, Bu Vivi. It's currently also already like 5:00 P.M., so thank you. This is conclude our earnings call for the first quarter of 2023. If you have any follow-up question, please contact us at ir@bri.co.id. We also would like to thank the BOD for participating in the call, in this call, and all of our investors and analysts who joined today. Thank you very much.