Indonesia's banking system has come a long way since the Asian financial crisis of seven years ago exposed the rottenness at its core, but several recent scandals have shown that the country still has some way to go. The discovery late last year of a $200m (Rp 1680bn) hole in the accounts of Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI), the result of a scam involving false letters of credit, and a suspected inside job that cost Bank Rakyat Indonesia $35m, illustrate how much still needs to changed. But such problems should not be allowed to obscure the progress that has been achieved. Six years ago, most private Indonesian banks were little more than slush funds for the huge corporations that owned them, and most of them were the inefficient and corrupt offspring of the kleptocracy that ran the country and the economy under President Suharto.
展开▼
