Two Records, Moving in Opposite Directions
The Sep 2018 post closed on total NPL bouncing straight back to a fresh nominal high one quarter after this series' first-ever sequential decline, undoing that improvement in a single reading. The full-year audited numbers confirm the pattern didn't stop there: bank-only nominal NPL closed 2018 at Rp7,593,637 million, up 2.5% quarter-over-quarter from Sep 2018's Rp7,410 billion and up 9.3% year-over-year from Rp6,944,916 million at Dec 2017 - the third fresh nominal high in the last four quarterly readings this series has tracked (Mar 2018's Rp7,223bn, a Jun 2018 dip, then new highs at both Sep and Dec 2018). The gross NPL ratio still ticked down to 1.41% from Sep 2018's 1.44%, purely because loan growth (15.1% for the full year) keeps outrunning the nominal NPL climb - the same mechanic Sep 2018 flagged is still doing the work of holding the ratio flat.
The second record this quarter's filing surfaces is a genuine one, not a base-effect illusion like the swing Sep 2018's post unwound. Full-year operating cash flow fell 49.1% to Rp4,912,562 million from Rp9,658,627 million in FY2017. Back-solving against the nine-month figures already reported (Rp7,719,370 million operating cash flow through September) shows Q4 2018 alone was operating-cash-flow negative - roughly Rp(2.8) trillion for the quarter alone, on top of Q3's own mildly negative reading. Unlike September's comparison, which turned positive only because a weak year-ago quarter made it look that way, this is BCA's own two most recent quarters actually burning cash, not a trick of the comparison base. A bank can run cash-negative quarters indefinitely as long as deposits and loan repayments keep the balance sheet funded - and BCA's did, with cash and equivalents still up 23.9% for the year - but it's a real signal that lending growth is now consistently outpacing the operating inflows funding it, not a one-quarter anomaly.
The Prescription
BCA should keep leaning into what's clearly still working - CASA-funded lending growth of 15.1% against a national sector average of just 11.8%, a widening gap in lending market share (10.2% at Dec 2018, up from 9.9% a year earlier), and a capital position (23.4% CAR bank-only) that gives it room to keep growing faster than peers without straining solvency. The bank's own annual report is unusually candid about the tension this series has been tracking for over a year: it explicitly flags that "high amount of restructured loans and the rise in the 'special mention' credit category amount is a reminder that credit quality may remain a concern" - a genuinely rare instance of management naming the exact risk this series' own findings keep surfacing, rather than letting the clean 1.4% headline NPL ratio speak for itself.
What it should stop doing: letting two straight quarters of negative operating cash flow pass without a dedicated explanation in its own investor materials, the way it explained September's swing only in passing. A bank growing loans 15.1% a year against 8.4% deposit growth is going to keep pressuring operating cash flow structurally, not occasionally - and a reader relying only on the headline net income line (up 10.9%, clean and steady) would have no way to know the cash-generation picture underneath it just got meaningfully worse for the year, not just for one unusual quarter.
Key Financial Metrics
FY2018 vs. FY2017 (P&L, cash flow, consolidated audited annual figures) and 31 Dec 2018 vs. 31 Dec 2017 (balance sheet, consolidated)
FX: IDR 14,380.0 = USD 1 (December 31, 2018, per BCA's own filed financial statements' Reuters middle-rate disclosure); IDR 13,567.5 = USD 1 used for the Dec 2017 comparative figures, per the same disclosure basis.
Like FY2017's annual filing, this is BCA's full audited annual report rather than an interim OJK-format filing - it carries genuine notes to the financial statements (commitments and contingencies, related-party transactions, loan collectability schedules, financial-ratio disclosures), not just the balance sheet/P&L/cash-flow schedules an interim filing provides. See Beyond the Usual for what mining those notes turned up.
| Metric | FY2018 (IDR) | FY2018 (USD) | FY2017 (IDR) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net Interest Income | Rp45,290,545M | ~$3,149.1M | Rp41,826,474M | ✅ +8.3% |
| Non-interest operating income (gross) | Rp17,743,675M | ~$1,234.0M | Rp15,155,209M | ✅ +17.1% |
| Pre-tax income | Rp32,706,064M | ~$2,274.7M | Rp29,158,743M | ✅ +12.2% |
| Net Income (attributable to owners) | Rp25,855,154M | ~$1,798.0M | Rp23,309,994M | ✅ +10.9% |
| EPS (full year, consolidated) | Rp1,049 | ~$0.073 | Rp945 | ✅ +10.9% |
| Balance sheet metric | Dec 2018 (IDR) | Dec 2018 (USD) | Dec 2017 (IDR) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Assets | Rp824,787,944M | ~$57.35B | Rp750,319,671M | ✅ +9.9% |
| Loans (net) | Rp524,530,462M | ~$36.48B | Rp454,264,956M | ✅ +15.5% |
| Total Deposits (Third Party Funds) | Rp629,812,017M | ~$43.80B | Rp581,115,442M | ✅ +8.4% |
| Total Liabilities | Rp668,438,779M | ~$46.48B | Rp614,940,262M | ✅ +8.7% |
| Total Equity (attributable to owners) | Rp151,659,684M | ~$10.55B | Rp131,303,555M | ✅ +15.5% |
Full-year operating cash flow fell 49.1% to Rp4,912,562M (~$341.6M) from Rp9,658,627M in FY2017 - a genuine decline, not the base-effect artifact Sep 2018's post found behind that quarter's apparent turnaround (fixed-asset acquisitions were Rp2,347,223M for the year). BCA's own management discussion attributes the operating-cash decline to increased lending: cash used for loan disbursement rose to Rp71.3 trillion in 2018 from Rp52.9 trillion in 2017, while customer deposit inflows grew a slower Rp46.0 trillion. ⚠️ Back-solving against the nine-month figures already published shows Q4 alone was operating-cash-flow negative (see above) - the second straight quarter this series has recorded a negative reading, following Q3's own mild shortfall. ✅ Cash and cash equivalents still grew to Rp103,311,560M (~$7.19B) at year-end, up 23.9% YoY from Rp83,377,439M, funded by Rp102.9 trillion of investment securities maturing during the year exceeding new purchases.
Net income grew a clean 10.9% for the year, but the cash-flow statement underneath it shows two consecutive quarters where BCA's core lending and deposit-taking business actually consumed cash rather than generated it - a structural gap between loan growth and deposit growth, not a one-quarter comparison artifact.
Key Operational Metrics
All ratios below are bank-only (individual), matching the basis used in every prior post in this series, from BCA's own filed financial-ratio disclosure:
- CASA ratio»: 76.7% (Dec 2018) vs. 76.3% (Dec 2017) ✅ - up 40bp for the year, recovering the Q3 2018 dip and landing above every full-year reading since Dec 2015. Nominal CASA balances grew 8.9% to Rp483.0 trillion, 76.7% of total third-party funds.
- LDR»: 81.6% (Dec 2018) vs. 78.2% (Dec 2017) ⚠️ - up 340bp for the year as loan growth (15.1%) continued outpacing deposit growth (8.4%), the same dynamic behind this quarter's cash-flow pressure above.
- NIM»: 6.1% (Dec 2018) vs. 6.2% (Dec 2017) ⚠️ - a 10bp full-year compression, milder than Sep 2018's sequential improvement suggested, since the year still closed down against 2017.
- ROA»: 4.0% (Dec 2018) vs. 3.9% (Dec 2017) ✅ - the full-year reading confirms Sep 2018's improvement held through year-end.
- ROE»: 18.8% (Dec 2018) vs. 19.2% (Dec 2017) ⚠️ - still declining, continuing the multi-year erosion this series has tracked since 2011.
- CAR» (bank-only, credit, market and operational risk): 23.4% (Dec 2018) vs. 23.1% (Dec 2017) ✅ - consolidated CAR reached 24.0%, comfortably above the regulatory minimum either way.
- NPL ratio - gross: 1.41% (Dec 2018) vs. 1.49% (Dec 2017) - improved on a ratio basis even as the nominal stock (Rp7,594bn) hit a fresh high (see above). NPL ratio - net: 0.45% (Dec 2018) vs. 0.45% (Dec 2017), unchanged.
- Cost Efficiency Ratio (bank-only opex over interest-plus-fee income): 44.3% (Dec 2018) vs. 44.4% (Dec 2017) ✅ - essentially flat, still comfortably below 50%.
- BOPO»: 58.2% (Dec 2018) vs. 58.6% (Dec 2017) ✅ - modest improvement, unlike FY2017's version of this ratio, which improved only because provisioning collapsed 42.5% that year; this year's provisioning expense actually rose slightly (see Beyond the Usual), so this improvement reads as a cleaner one.
- Special Mention loans (bank-only basis): Rp9,666,606 million (Dec 2018), down 13.4% quarter-over-quarter from Rp11,159 billion at Sep 2018 - the same Q4 seasonal pullback this series also recorded at Dec 2017 (down 13.7% QoQ that year too) - but still up 43.8% year-over-year from Rp6,721,900 million (Dec 2017), meaning the level the bucket climbed to during 2018 only partially unwound.
- NSFR»: 154.3% at Dec 2018, down from roughly 158% at Sep 2018's first-ever disclosure, still far above the eventual 100% regulatory minimum.
- National banking sector context: BCA's own annual report cites system-wide gross NPL of 2.4% (2018, improved from 2.6% in 2017) against BCA's own 1.4% - still well inside the national average, while sector-wide loan growth ran 11.8% versus BCA's 15.1%. BCA's own report also explicitly warns that a sector-wide "rise in the 'special mention' credit category" (not just BCA's own) is a credit-quality item worth watching, echoing this series' own multi-quarter focus on exactly that bucket.
Segment Performance
BCA reports three lending segments (bank-only): Corporate, Commercial & SME, and Consumer, plus a small residual Employee-loan category. All figures below are bank-only, per BCA's own annual report's segment disclosure.
Corporate
Corporate loans reached Rp213,356 billion (Dec 2018), up 20.4% YoY - the fastest-growing segment for a full year running, continuing the acceleration this series flagged through 2018. BCA's own MD&A credits both rising working-capital demand and a 20.6% jump in investment-loan growth (up from just 5.3% in 2017), partly tied to ongoing government infrastructure lending. Segment NPL held at a clean 1.3%, and BCA's own disclosure notes it has "never written-off corporate loans in recent years" - meaning any Corporate credit deterioration still sits on the balance sheet at full nominal value rather than being cleaned through write-offs, the same structural point FY2017's post flagged.
Commercial & SME
Commercial & SME loans reached Rp189,960 billion (Dec 2018), up 15.4% YoY - split between Commercial (Rp112,060bn, +13.5%) and SME (Rp77,900bn, +18.2%), with SME growth driven mainly by distributors, wholesalers and retailers. Segment NPL improved to 1.6% from 1.8% a year earlier, the one segment where credit quality moved the favorable direction on a full-year basis.
Consumer
Consumer loans reached Rp131,671 billion (Dec 2018), up 7.2% YoY from Rp122,855 billion (Dec 2017) on this annual report's own segment basis - Mortgage (Rp78,780bn, +7.9%), Vehicle (Rp39,998bn, +4.4%), and Credit Card (Rp12,893bn, +11.8%). This is a genuinely awkward number to reconcile against Sep 2018's interim filing, which reported Consumer at Rp139,934 billion for that quarter against a Dec 2017 comparative of Rp128,296 billion - roughly Rp5.4 trillion higher than this annual report's own Dec 2017 figure for the same line. See Beyond the Usual for what this discrepancy likely means.
Segment Comparison
| Segment | Dec 2018 (Rp bn) | Dec 2017 (Rp bn) | YoY | Share (Dec 2018) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Corporate | 213,356 | 177,277 | ✅ +20.4% | 39.7% |
| Commercial & SME | 189,960 | 164,661 | ✅ +15.4% | 35.3% |
| Consumer | 131,671 | 122,855 | ✅ +7.2% | 24.5% |
| Employee | 2,927 | 2,827 | ✅ +3.5% | 0.5% |
| Total | 537,914 | 467,620 | ✅ +15.0% | 100% |
Corporate widened its lead as the fastest-growing segment for the full year, extending the gap Sep 2018 already flagged rather than narrowing it - the reacceleration in Consumer growth that quarter's post called out didn't carry through into a stronger full-year Consumer reading on this report's own basis, landing at 7.2% for the year against Corporate's 20.4% and Commercial & SME's 15.4%.
Stock Price: The Rally Widened Further, Then Pulled Back Into Year-End
BCA's shares closed at approximately Rp26,000 on December 31, 2018 (converted from BCA's post-split share count, adjusted for the company's later 1:5 stock split in October 2021, since price data pulled today for this period reflects that split retroactively) - up 7.7% from Rp24,150 at Sep 28, 2018, and up 18.7% for the full year from Rp21,900 at Dec 29, 2017. Over the trailing two years, shares are up roughly 70% from around Rp15,300 (Jan 2017, the earliest point in this post's pricing window). The path wasn't a straight climb from Q3's close: shares rallied to a two-year high around Rp26,050 by late November before easing slightly into year-end, a mild give-back consistent with the pattern Sep 2018's post noted of the rally periodically pulling back from an intra-quarter peak rather than compounding in a straight line.
Beyond the Usual
Like FY2017's post, this is a full audited annual filing with genuine notes to the financial statements - commitments and contingencies, related-party transactions, loan collectability schedules by economic sector, and detailed movement schedules for loan-loss allowances - not just the balance sheet/P&L/cash-flow schedules an interim OJK filing provides. The findings below come from mining those notes directly.
Total NPL Set Its Third Fresh High in Four Quarters
Bank-only nominal NPL closed the year at Rp7,593,637 million, up from Rp7,410 billion at Sep 2018 and Rp6,944,916 million a year earlier - the third new high in the last four quarterly readings this series has tracked (Mar 2018's Rp7,223bn peak, a Jun 2018 decline, then fresh highs at both Sep and Dec 2018). The gross NPL ratio still improved slightly to 1.41% from 1.44% at Sep 2018, entirely because loan growth (15.1% for the year) outran the NPL climb - the same mechanic this series has flagged every quarter since Sep 2018. A ratio held flat or improving by denominator growth, on a nominal bad-loan stock that keeps setting new records, is a different story from credit quality genuinely turning around.
A Third of the Restructured Loan Book Still Isn't Performing
Bank-only restructured loans grew 21.6% year-over-year to Rp7,985,984 million from Rp6,568,422 million at Dec 2017. Of the Dec 2018 total, 29.3% (Rp2,335,803 million) sits in an outright NPL classification - Substandard, Doubtful, or Loss - despite already having been restructured once. That share is an improvement from Dec 2017's 33.4% but worse than Sep 2018's 22.5%, meaning the restructured book's own credit quality moved the wrong direction over Q4 even as the wider annual comparison looks better. Another 34.4% of the restructured book sits in Special Mention, so well over 60% of BCA's restructured loans aren't in the clean "Current" bucket at all.
Write-Offs Nearly Doubled for the Full Year
The bank-dominated loan-loss allowance schedule shows Rp2,497,650 million written off during 2018, up 87.3% from Rp1,333,719 million in 2017 - consistent with the roughly-doubling pace Sep 2018's nine-month figure already showed. Recoveries on previously written-off loans fell to Rp147,189 million from Rp235,167 million, a 37.4% decline, even as the amount being written off grew - the ratio-management mechanic BCA itself has repeatedly credited to "corporate write-offs" is running at a larger scale for the full year than it was through September alone.
Derivative Liabilities Collapsed 91% From September's Spike as the Rupiah Stabilized
Bank-only spot and derivative liabilities fell from Rp2,198,031 million at Sep 2018 - the 42-fold jump Sep 2018's post flagged - to Rp188,934 million at Dec 2018, a 91.4% quarter-over-quarter decline, though still 3.5 times Dec 2017's Rp53,843 million. This tracks the currency's own move: the Rupiah appreciated from Rp14,902.50/USD at Sep 2018 to Rp14,380.0/USD at Dec 2018, per BCA's own disclosed exchange rates, reversing part of the depreciation that drove September's spike. It's the clearest confirmation yet that the derivative-liability swing was genuinely a currency-hedging byproduct tracking Rupiah moves quarter to quarter, not a structural change in BCA's risk exposure.
The Consumer Segment Definition Shifted Between Interim and Annual Disclosure
BCA's own FY2018 annual report states Consumer loans reached Rp131,671 billion at Dec 2018 against a Dec 2017 comparative of Rp122,855 billion - but Sep 2018's interim filing reported the same Dec 2017 comparative figure as Rp128,296 billion, roughly Rp5.4 trillion higher. Because the two filings' Dec 2017 baselines for the identical segment line don't match, the annual report's Consumer figures aren't reliably comparable quarter-to-quarter against the interim filings this series has tracked through the year - a segment-reporting basis change (or a scope difference between what the interim and annual disclosures count as "Consumer") rather than a genuine business swing. This series will use whichever basis each filing itself reports on, but a reader comparing Consumer growth across quarters within 2018 should treat the annual report's own full-year read (7.2% YoY) as the more reliable single-year number rather than trying to reconcile it against the interim quarters' own comparatives.
BCA's related-party loans receivable fell to Rp3,213,328 million (0.61% of the net loan book) from Rp3,568,627 million a year earlier, still including the tiket.com and Djarum-group technology holdings FY2017's post first surfaced - a small, shrinking share of the book rather than a growing one.
BCA disclosed 280 legal proceedings in 2018 (265 civil, 15 criminal; 145 civil and 4 criminal still in process at year-end), essentially unchanged in scale from the 280 disclosed in FY2017, with management again stating none had a material effect on the bank's financial condition and no administrative sanctions were imposed during the year.
Target Valuation Range
P/E of ~24.8x and P/B of ~4.23x - Bottom line: richer on both multiples again, in a year where the headline net income and cash-generation stories genuinely diverged - a market still pricing the clean 10.9% net income growth line, not the operating cash flow line that fell by half.
- P/E»: ~24.8x, using FY2018 EPS of Rp1,049 against the Rp26,000 December 31, 2018 close - up from ~23.8x at Sep 2018 (which used trailing-twelve-month EPS against the Sep 2018 close).
- P/B»: ~4.23x, using book value per share of Rp6,152 (equity attributable to parent, Rp151,659,684 million, divided by 24,655,010,000 shares outstanding) - up from ~4.15x at Sep 2018.
| Market cap → book value | FY2018 |
|---|---|
| Share price (period-end) | Rp26,000 |
| Shares outstanding | 24,655,010,000 |
| Market capitalization | Rp641,030B (~$44.59B) |
| Book value (equity attributable to owners) | Rp151,660B (~$10.55B) |
| P/B» | ~4.23x |
| P/E and P/B | Q3 2018 | FY2018 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| EPS (trailing) | Rp1,013 | Rp1,049 | ✅ up |
| P/E» | ~23.8x | ~24.8x | ⚠️ up |
| Book value per share | Rp5,825 | Rp6,152 | ✅ up |
| P/B» | ~4.15x | ~4.23x | ⚠️ up |
As in every prior post in this series, a full DCF isn't attempted here - a bank whose nominal NPL stock just set its third fresh high in four quarters, in the same year its operating cash flow roughly halved, isn't a stable enough base for a multi-year cash-flow model yet. The peer-multiple comparison this section would normally lean on isn't available either: no other IDX bank in this backlog has a post covering the same December 2018 year-end yet to compare against.
PT Bank Central Asia Tbk & Entitas Anak's audited consolidated and individual financial statements as of and for the year ended 31 December 2018, including notes to the consolidated financial statements (commitments and contingencies, related-party transactions, loan collectability and write-off schedules, financial-ratio disclosures), published as part of BCA's 2018 Annual Report; and BCA's corporate presentation for the full-year 2018 analysts' meeting, dated February 28, 2019.