SUPERBANK The Loan-to-Deposit Ratio Just Hit 218% - And the Loss Kept Growing

Growing the Loan Book Faster Than the Deposit Base That's Supposed to Fund It

PT Super Bank Indonesia's first quarterly filing under its new name showed a bank funded mostly by shareholder capital rather than customer deposits, with a loan-to-deposit ratio^» of 204.37%. This filing, for the half-year ended June 30, 2023, shows that gap widening rather than closing: loans grew 35.4% in a single quarter (from Rp938.0 billion at year-end 2022 to Rp1,269,955M), while total deposits reached only Rp581.9 billion - pushing the loan-to-deposit ratio to 218.23%, the least funded-by-its-own-depositors this bank has looked in the two quarters covered so far.

None of that is unusual for a digital bank a year into a high-profile rebrand backed by Emtek, Grab, and Singtel - the whole point of the consortium's capital is to fund exactly this kind of build-out ahead of revenue. What's worth tracking is whether the loan growth is coming with the deposit-gathering infrastructure to eventually fund it on its own, or whether Superbank is simply spending down shareholder capital to originate loans faster than its own retail funding franchise can keep up.

The Prescription

Net interest margin^» improved again this half, to 7.08% from 3.59% in the year-ago (pre-rebrand) comparative - real evidence the bank can price a loan book at a healthy spread once it's actually lending. The move that compounds from here is exactly what it was last quarter: build the deposit-gathering app-based franchise before growing the loan book further, since a widening loan-to-deposit gap funded by shareholder capital isn't a scalable model - it's a countdown to the next capital raise.

What it should stop doing: letting the cost base scale faster than either revenue or the deposit franchise. Labor costs rose from Rp9.2 billion to Rp161.4 billion year-on-year for the half - a 1,652% increase - pushing BOPO^» to 174.15%, up from 96.49% a year earlier and worse than Q1's already-elevated 146.11%. A digital-transformation hiring wave is a reasonable one-time cost; two straight quarters of BOPO getting worse, not better, means the cost base isn't yet finding its ceiling.

Key Financial Metrics

H1 2023 vs. H1 2022 (P&L, six months ended June 30) - bank-only ("Individual"); balance sheet as of June 30, 2023 vs. December 31, 2022

FX: IDR 15,064 = USD 1 (June 29, 2023 close, applied throughout for consistency).

Metric	H1 2023 (IDR)	H1 2023 (USD)	H1 2022 (IDR)	YoY
Net Interest Income ("Net Revenue" equivalent)	Rp132,899M	~$8.82M	Rp48,151M	✅ +176.0%
Non-interest operating income (expense), net	Rp(247,001)M	~-$16.4M	Rp(45,788)M	⚠️ cost widened 439.5%
Operating Income (Loss)	Rp(114,102)M	~-$7.57M	Rp2,363M	⚠️ swung to a loss
Net Income (Loss)	Rp(112,920)M	~-$7.50M	Rp2,104M	⚠️ swung to a loss

Balance sheet metric	Jun 2023 (IDR)	Jun 2023 (USD)	Dec 2022 (IDR)	Change
Total Assets	Rp4,133,135M	~$274.4M	Rp3,995,632M	✅ +3.4%
Loans (Kredit yang diberikan)	Rp1,269,955M	~$84.3M	Rp938,044M	✅ +35.4%
Total Deposits (Giro + Tabungan + Deposito)	Rp581,923M	~$38.6M	Rp370,828M	✅ +56.9%
Total Liabilities	Rp684,876M	~$45.5M	Rp450,379M	⚠️ +52.1%
Total Equity	Rp3,448,259M	~$228.9M	Rp3,545,253M	⚠️ -2.7%

Operating Income is the bank's own disclosed "Laba (Rugi) Operasional" line. Adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow don't apply to a deposit-taking bank and aren't shown - this remains the bare OJK regulatory publication format with no cash flow statement.

A loan book growing 35% in a single quarter against a deposit base that's still barely a sixth the size of shareholder equity is capital-funded growth, not proof of a self-sustaining lending business yet.

Key Operational Metrics

Funding & Liquidity

• Loan-to-deposit ratio (LDR^»): 218.23% (Jun 2023), up from 85.22% (Jun 2022) and up from 204.37% the prior quarter - the gap between lending and deposit-gathering is widening, not narrowing.
• CAR^» / KPMM (capital adequacy): 237.91% (Jun 2023), down from 285.16% (Jun 2022) as retained losses eat into the capital base, but still more than 23 times the regulatory minimum.

Credit Quality

• NPL^» ratio - gross: 3.65% (Jun 2023), up from 3.04% (Jun 2022).
• NPL ratio - net: 0.58% (Jun 2023), down from 2.14% (Jun 2022), but up from 0.26% the prior quarter - a modest deterioration alongside the rapid loan growth, worth watching rather than alarming on its own.
• Loan-loss reserve coverage (CKPN / aset produktif): 5.39% (Jun 2023), up from 1.66% (Jun 2022) - reserves continuing to build ahead of realized losses.

Profitability & Efficiency

• NIM^»: 7.08% (Jun 2023), up from 3.62% (Jun 2022).
• ROA: -5.56% (Jun 2023), down from 0.19% (Jun 2022).
• ROE: -6.77% (Jun 2023), down from 0.19% (Jun 2022).
• BOPO^»: 174.15% (Jun 2023), up from 96.49% (Jun 2022).
• Cost-to-Income Ratio^» (CIR): 157.72% (Jun 2023), up from 77.89% (Jun 2022).

Not available in this filing: a segment or product-level loan breakdown, transacting-user or merchant counts, deposit-cost disclosure, or a presentation deck, press release, or call transcript for this specific quarter.

Beyond the Usual

The loan-to-deposit gap is widening, not narrowing, one quarter into the rebrand

Loans grew 35.4% in a single quarter while total deposits, though growing faster in percentage terms (+56.9%), remain a fraction of the size needed to fund the loan book - pushing LDR from 204.37% to 218.23% in three months. A bank funded this heavily by shareholder capital can sustain elevated LDR indefinitely as long as its owners keep recapitalizing it, but that's a different business than a deposit-funded digital bank, and the gap moving in the wrong direction for a second straight quarter is worth tracking into Q3.

Problem-asset ratios ticked up modestly alongside the fastest loan growth so far

NPL gross rose to 3.65% from 3.97% the prior quarter (which was itself measured against a different, pre-rebrand comparative) but rose against its own year-ago comparative (3.04%), and the broader "aset produktif bermasalah" ratio (problem earning assets to total earning assets) rose to 1.84% from 1.71% year-on-year. None of this is alarming in isolation, but a loan book growing 35% in three months is exactly the scenario where asset-quality metrics are worth watching closely in the following quarter, before underwriting standards have had time to be tested by a full credit cycle.

Labor costs grew more than sixteen-fold year-on-year

Salary and benefits expense rose from Rp9.2 billion to Rp161.4 billion for the half - a 1,651.5% increase - the single largest driver of the jump in BOPO and cost-to-income ratio above. This is the clearest line-item evidence of just how large a hiring wave Superbank has run through in its first two quarters as a relaunched digital bank, well beyond what the loan book's own growth would require on its own.

Undrawn committed credit facilities kept growing

Following Q1 2023's Rp167.2 billion of undrawn committed facilities, the committed pipeline grew again to Rp176.7 billion at June 2023 (up 141.0% from Rp73.3 billion a year earlier) - all still disclosed as "committed" rather than "uncommitted," a distinction that changes materially in the next quarter (see the Q3 2023 post).

Target Valuation Range

No numeric valuation range is computable for Superbank: it has no independently traded equity or debt, so no share price, market cap, or P/E/P/B multiple exists to anchor one.

Superbank has no independently traded equity or debt, and its shareholder base is unchanged from the prior quarter (Emtek, Grab, Singtel, and three smaller Indonesian holders) - see Q1 2023's valuation section for the full reasoning. No share price, market capitalization, or trading multiple exists for this entity, so none is estimated here.

Two quarters into the relaunch, Superbank has proven it can grow a loan book quickly with fresh shareholder capital - the harder, still-unanswered question is whether the deposit-gathering side of the business can ever catch up to fund it on its own.

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