Indonesian banks increased public fund amidst liquidity squeeze this year, a banking official said on Monday.

"We made some innovations to gather public funds. That's very important to tackle credit crunch challenge," said Stefanus Willy Sukianto, Senior Vice President of Wealth Management and Funding Business of Bank International Indonesia, a subsidiary of the Malaysia's biggest bank, Malayan Banking Berhad (Maybank).

The latest bank's innovation was creating a special saving for women launched on Wednesday that targeted fund of 500 billion rupiah or US$44.8 million in the first year.

The company said that its product, BII Woman One Saving, is the first saving for woman in Indonesia to respond female customers who have specific needs.

The company also targeted to gather 15-20 percent increase in third party fund annually." As of December 2008 we have third party fund of 44 trillion rupiah or around US$3.95 billion," said Hevi Angweita, BII's Chief National Sales Officer.

BII is one of Indonesia's biggest banks with international network. The company have 250 branch offices and more than 725 ATMs nationwide. In March 2008, Maybank bought 56.8 percent of BII's shares worth US$1.5 billion, making it the biggest bank's shareholder.

(Xinhua News Agency April 20, 2009)