Kepemilikan Asing di SBI: “The Taming of the Screw”

Sertifikat Bank Indonesia (SBI) adalah instrumen finansial yang ditujukan untuk menciptakan stabilisasi moneter di Indonesia. Sayangnya, banyak spekulator, terlebih pihak asing, yang menggunakan instrumen tersebut sebagai sarana yang profitabel, dan membeli SBI dimaksud pada harga optimum dengan prinsip profit-taking. BI menyadari kondisi ini disebabkan karena ineksistensi aturan yang membatasi kepemilikan pihak asing pada SBI. Sebagai kelanjutannya, mulai 7 Juli 2010, BI memutuskan untuk mengatur periode kepemilikan investasi di SBI selama minimum 1 bulan, sebelum dapat diperjualbelikan kembali di pasar sekunder. Pengaturan ini diterapkan untuk investor lokal mau pun asing. Dan, reaksi pun bermunculan dari para ekonom yang kurang setuju mengenai kebijakan BI dimaksud, antara lain seperti, “Limitasi 1 bulan tersebut tidak ada gunanya. SBI itu untuk stabilisasi moneter. Jadi seharusnya seluruh kepemilikan asing dilarang dalam bentuk apa pun atas SBI tersebut. Mengapa BI harus takut?” (komentar salah satu Ekonom pada harian Media Indonesia, 20 Juni 2010).

Takut? Benarkah begitu?

Saya punya teman, dan kami telah berteman selama 12 tahun lamanya (untuk para pembaca, you should note bahwa artikel ini bukan mengenai umur kami, so please be focused.. ;P). Saya ingat, ketika saya berusia 14-15 tahun, teman saya ini mengenalkan kepada Billiard. Kami sering berkelana ke beberapa Billiard Pool untuk menjajal kemampuan ber-billiard kami. Tapi ya, karena memang teman saya itu berbakat (dan saya tidak), dia mulai menjajal kemampuannya dengan lebih maksimal. Sayangnya, dia berjudi melalui permainan Billiard itu (berjudi untuk Billiard, dan spekulasi untuk bisnis keuangan, mind your own language.. ;P), karena dia benar-benar mengharapkan bayaran uang dari pihak yang dikalahkannya. Nasehat saya (For God sakes! Dia itu bahkan bukan Tom Cruise atau Paul Newman dalam ‘Colour of the Money’) untuk mengembalikannya ke jalan yang benar hanya berlalu bagai angin semusim.

Lantas, Ayahnya yang tahu mengenai hal ini langsung murka sebesar-besarnya, dan melarang teman saya untuk memiliki ‘hubungan’ apa pun dengan permainan yang bernama Billiard tersebut. Uang jajannya dipotong, dan ‘pengamanan’ ditingkatkan agar teman saya itu ‘menghapus’ Billiard dari otaknya. Berhasilkah cara itu? Nyatanya, justru teman saya itu malah makin menggila. Dia berbohong kepada ayahnya, berjudi melalui Billiard dengan intensitas yang lebih parah dari sebelumnya. Drama ini benar-benar mencapai puncaknya ketika pihak sekolah kami menangkap basah dirinya, meninggalkan rasa malu yang teramat besar bagi si Ayahnya.

Setelah kejadian itu, ayahnya mulai melunak. Ayahnya tetap memberikan kesempatan dia untuk bermain Billiard secara benar, tidak melarangnya berjudi secara terang-terangan, namun mengurangi porsi berjudinya, hingga akhirnya teman saya itu benar-benar merasakan kepuasan bermain Billiard tanpa berjudi (ayahnya sempat mengikutsertakan teman saya itu di Kompetisi Billiard Amatir). Secara bertahap, harus saya akui bahwa cara ini berhasil. Terakhir yang saya ketahui, teman saya itu tidak ketagihan lagi berjudi dalam permainan Billiard (tidak ketagihan, bukan berarti tidak sama sekali, tapi setidaknya jauh lebih baik dari kondisi sebelumnya).

Sebagaimana menjinakkan perilaku berjudi teman saya di atas, maka menjinakkan perilaku spekulator keuangan pun juga harus dilakukan dengan cara yang strategis. Perlu terdapat upaya untuk menghindari aksi para spekulator pada ‘lapangan’ lainnya yang dikhawatirkan akan berdampak buruk terhadap inflasi, terutama bila mengacaukan (screw) ketersediaan cadangan devisa. Dengan demikian, kebijakan untuk ‘menahan kepemilikan SBI minimum 1 bulan’ ini sepertinya masih layak untuk dicoba. Apalagi mengingat bahwa kondisi makroekonomi Indonesia juga tidak begitu menggembirakan, seperti tingkat inflasi tengah tahun (5,05% di Juni 2010, dengan target tahunan 5,7%), kemungkinan kenaikan harga akibat kebijakan pemerintah yang menaikkan Tarif Dasar Listrik (TDL), dan kelanjutan musim siklikal seperti Idul Fitri, Natal dan Tahun Baru, serta Tahun Ajaran Baru di bulan Juni dan Juli 2010.

Menurut inilah.com (16 Juni 2010), BI masih yakin bahwa berdasarkan perspektif ekonomi yang luas, peran dana asing dalam SBI belum memiliki pengaruh yang signifikan dalam fundamental ekonomi, dan juga diduga tidak akan mengganggu kebijakan makroekonomi yang ada. Terdapat banyak fakta bahwa kondisi makroekonomi masih dipengaruhi (namun tidak terbatas) oleh harga dari energi dasar seperti BBM bersubsidi, tarif air dan listrik. Penempatan dana asing di SBI tersebut diindikasikan berpengaruh terhadap investment grading Indonesia. Dan, berdasarkan pengukuran di bulan Juni 2010, penempatan dana asing di SBI adalah sekitar Rp33 Triliun, dari jumlah keseluruhan dana di SBI sebesar Rp270 Triliun (sekitar 12,22%).

Bila Shakespeare sang pujangga Inggris terkenal itu mewujudkan ekspresi melalui lakon karyanya yang berjudul “Taming of the Shrew”, maka BI pun juga dapat mewujudkan ekspresinya melalui “Taming of the Screw” dalam pengaturan operasionalisasi SBI untuk saat ini.. ;P

PS: To my old friend, pengen juga main Billiard bareng lagi, but please don’t laugh at my skill now, since those golden years have passed me by.. ;P


(The English Version)

Foreign Funds in BI-Bills: “The Taming of the Screw”

Certainly, Bank Indonesia (BI) Bills (BI-Bills or SBI) is the financial instrument which intended to regulate the stability of monetary system in Indonesia. On the other hand, the speculators, especially the foreigners, utilize that instrument to fulfill its profitability requirement, and obtain such instrument from any secondary market whenever they feel it can provide them a fine return with the optimum purchasing price. BI has fully realized this condition was originated from inexistence of regulation regarding such limitation for the foreigner speculators who want to obtain BI-Bills. And as the final result, starting from the date of 7 July 2010, BI has decided to set the period for the investors to hold their investment of BI-Bills for minimum of 1 month, before it can be secondary marketed again. This regulation is applied to all investors, both local and foreign. Thus, there were many Economists who said negatively about this circumstance, as stated by one among of those opinions, “The holding period of one month is useless. BI-Bills should be the instrument to regulate national monetary system, and as a result, BI should FORBID all foreign funds employ themselves in such instrument. Why must BI be terrified of that?” (taken from Media Indonesia-The Daily Newspaper, 20 Juni 2010).

Terrified? Is it really like that?

I have a friend, and he has been my friend since we were 12 years old (to all readers, you should note that this article is not about our age, so please be focused.. ;p). I remembered, when we were around 14-15 years old, he introduced me to the game of Billiard. We always tried our skill from one pool house into another. But, since he was really talented in such skill, he began to explore about it more than I've ever imagined. He began to be the gambler (gambler for snooker, and speculator for financial businessman, minding your own language.. ;P) since he played that game in the motivation of acquiring the money from the losers. I didn't follow him, off course, only advising him for not doing that (for God sakes! I told him that he was not even a Tom Cruise nor Paul Newman in 'Colour of The Money'). Also, it was useless since he ignored my advise completely.

Then, when his father knew about this, the normal reaction from him was getting angry and forbade my friend to play anything to do with billiard! His father did cut his allowance and created so many limitations that eliminated his chance to play any game related to Billiard. Was it useful? In fact, my friend was getting more mad. He lied to his father, playing hide and seek with him, and being the gambler more badly than before. It ended when he has been caught by the school authority, and it left a big embarrassment to his father.

After that incident, I knew that his father treated him in a proper way. He gave him a chance to play billiard in a proper way, and didn't forbid him to gamble, but just decreasing the portion of such gambling, until at last he could find the satisfaction of playing the game of billiard without any gambling motivation (his father also encouraged my friend to got involve in a snooker competition). Step by step, and I must tell you that it worked out. The last time I know, he was not addicted to snooker gambling anymore (not addicted, doesn't mean that it was eliminated, but it's more than fine compare to his condition before).

As taming my friend's habit in gambling above, taming a speculators should be done also in a strategic way. There has to be an avoidance of any unpredictable actions from those foreign speculators in another field and fetch the worst impact on the inflation rates, especially when it comes to screw the foreign exchange reserves surprisingly. Therefore, keeping the chance for the foreign speculators to locate their funds (even just for one month) is still the worth possibility to try. Not to mention that fiscal macroeconomics condition is not in a pleasant way, such as mid year inflation rate (5,05 persen on June 2010, with the yearly targeting of 5,7 persen), the possibility of any additional price increasing based on the government policy to set the higher basic electricity tarrifs (TDL), and the continuance of high inflation based on the cyclical seasons from Idul Fitri (region festive for Muslims), Christmas and New Year, and also the beginning year of the school program on June and July 2010.

According to inilah.com (June 16, 2010), BI also still has a confidence that based on the wide economics perspective, the role of foreign funds in BI-Bills does not have a significant impact to the fundamental of economics, and thus it won’t distort any macroeconomics policy. There are so many facts that the macroeconomics in Indonesia is persuaded by the price of such basic energy such as subsidized fuel, water and electricity, and not by the flow of the funds from the speculators. The foreign funds in BI Bills is indicated to have influence on investment grading of Indonesia, which not absolutely have a significant correlation with the prospect or current result of such investments. Based on the measurement to the month of June 2010, the foreign funds in BI-Bills was just about IDR 33 Trillion from the total sum amount of IDR 270 Trillion (around 12,22%).

Should Shakespeare, the famous British Literature Writer expressed himself in his play “Taming of The Shrew”, then BI could express itself with 'Taming of The Screw' in the business of the BI-bills for a time being.. ;P

PS: To my dearest friend, I'd really want to play billiard again with you sometimes, but please don’t laugh at my skill now, since those golden years have passed me by.. :P