Universitas Gadjah Mada
Faculty of Economics and Business

In order to further introduce financial literacy and residential property funding to students and the general public, the Faculty of Economics and Business, Gadjah Mada University (FEB UGM) together with PT Sarana Multigriya Finansial (Persero) held a public lecture with the theme “Hard to Have a Home? Says who?” on Thursday (17/11). The public lecture was opened with opening speech by Ananta Wiyogo, as the Main Director of PT Sarana Multigriya Finansial (Persero), and was filled in by two expert speakers, namely Dodok Dwi Handoko, as KND Study Staff of the Ministry of Finance, and Martin Daniel, as Chief Economist of PT Sarana Multigriya Finansial (Persero).

Based on the 1945 Constitution Article 28H paragraph (1), every citizen has the right to be able to live in prosperity, physically and mentally, to have a place to live, and to get a good and healthy environment. Therefore, the government is obliged to provide decent housing to its people. However, the government needed the means to fulfill this, so PT Sarana Multigriya Finansial (Persero) was present, which was tasked with providing long-term funds for middle to lower class housing. The company's main mission is to provide access to affordable proper housing for low-income people (MBR) through innovative product innovations.

According to the material presented by Dodok, some of the problems that still occur in housing finance in Indonesia include inequality in people’s purchasing power, demographic transitions that lead to cities, and the increasing need for housing supplies resulting in a supply-demand mismatch. Apart from that, there is also an urgency in which housing is a strategic sector in the economy because it has a strong multiplier effect on approximately 174 other economic sectors.

Mr. Dodok also stated that although there were already a number of policy instruments to support MBR housing such as the Housing Stimulant Assistance (BSPS) and Savings-Based Housing Financing Assistance (BP2BT), the available financing schemes were not yet optimal and further studies were needed on the effectiveness of existing programs.

In the material presented by Martin, PT Sarana Multigriya Finansial (Persero) itself offers innovative products as an alternative solution for providing decent housing. Among them, the first is the Housing Financing Liquidity Facility Mortgage Program (KPR FLPP) which is a banking portion of assistance funds for FLPP prosperous KPR financing aimed at Banks distributing FLPP KPR. The second is Housing Microfinance, which is a program that provides access to finance for underprivileged women’s communities who wish to renovate their homes which also function as their place of business. The third is the Quality Improvement Program for Housing in Slum Areas, which distributes funds to people living in slum areas to build their houses into more livable houses.

It is hoped that this public lecture can inspire young students to start preparing for housing ownership as early as possible so that the statistics of the younger generation’s housing ownership, which is very low, can gradually improve. The public lecture ended with an intriguing question and answer session between the participants and speakers.

Reportage: Kirana Lalita Pristy