JAKARTA - PT Bank Central Asia Tbk (BBCA) allocates capital expenditure (capex) budget of IDR 8.7 trillion this year. The capex is allocated for the development of data centre, cybersecurity, and branch opening in 20 locations.

Vera Eve Lim, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of BCA, said that the company will add another data centre ready to be used in the first half. “So, this data centre is not our second. We already have three new data centres to respond to future transaction volume,” she told IDNFinancials in BCA Tower in Jakarta last week (2/8).

According to Lim, the data centre is an urgency to facilitate mobile banking transaction, as well as transaction security, considering increased cyber-attacks. The investment for cybersecurity, she added, is doubled compared to last year.

As of now, BCA invests a lot in technology aspects, including software, Electronic Data Capture (EDC) machine, and Automatic Teller Machine (ATM). This year, the company will add new machine approximately 22% of 750,000 current ATM units.

“40% of our outdated machine have been converted to newer ones. This ATM is vital, because post-pandemic, ATM transactions increase,” Lim said.

According to Lim, until the end of this year, approximately 80% of BCA’s ATM could be used to deposit and withdraw money. Deposit-and-withdraw ATM is crucial for easy transaction access for increasing users.

“The growth of our users reaches 20% per year. Now, the number of accounts is 37 million. No matter how many added bank tellers, it will never be enough. The queue will get longer,” Lim stated.

Lim said that the solution for reducing the lengthy line in bank tellers is to add more deposit-and-withdraw ATM that operates 24/7. “Last year, we operated 28,000 units of deposit-and-withdraw ATMs. 60% of the machine are now able to deposit and withdraw cash,” she confirmed. (LK/ZH)