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I Wayan Ardiana
"Good Intentions Always Work"
“ When Wayan was first appointed to manage LPD
Seminyak, the informal village financial institution, he had no banking experience but his hard work and, most essentially, his good intentions
have successfully enhanced the LPD Seminyak assets
from USD.10,000 to over USD.12,000,000 ”
After graduating from high school, Wayan continued his education at university, majoring in economics, while at the same time working as a tour guide; driving and showing the island to overseas tourists. After making many friends who work in the same field, he decided to establish a Koperasi, a small union that provides loan services to its members. As the Koperasi grew, he then decided to leave school
in the 6th semester and focused more on his guide work as well as the Koperasi.
“ I have no idea how to run a financial institution and in fact, in the first week, my staff and I didn’t know what to do ”
In 1998, Wayan was asked by the head of Seminyak village to establish and manage the LPD. At that time he had absolutely no idea of how to run this informal financial institution, which is actually almost like a bank, but he had one good mission; increase the standard of living and preserve the culture financially by facilitating the village ceremonies.
After doing one week’s training in a government
institution and a little training in LPD Legian, The LPD was opened on 28th September, 1998 and he effectively started his CEO job on 1st October, 1998.
With the small office provided by the Banjar and a capital of only USD.5,000, he started his work with almost no clue as to what to do in the first week other than giving a direct socialisation to the people who live around the area. After 3 months, the Desa put another USD.5,000 of capital but that total of USD.10,000 could not be used to pay the overheads.
“ We barely got a salary in the first few months, only petrol money of about USD.12 a month ”
Gaining trust was perhaps the most difficult task for Wayan and his team. They had to do it the traditional
way by going from one door to another but after a few years of hard work and honesty they were finally
trusted by not only the people on the inside but also outside of
Now, after 12 year of hard work, honesty and the good intention of assisting the people in the village,
their persistence has finally paid off. From the original assets of USD.10,000, the total has now increased to over USD.12,000,000 and, from a small office
they have progressed to owning 2 offices in a very strategic area and all this was achieved through good intentions.
“ Simple operation that is based on trust and Karma resulting in 0% bad loan ”
In today’s world, where competition is so high
and a lot of fraud takes place, strict regulations
and systems, which sometimes can be complicated, are a necessity. In contrast with this, Wayan and his team use a different operation based approach, which uses trust and a culture of embarrassment. With this method, LPD Seminyak has 0% bad debt whereas I am sure none of the financial institutions in the world
have such great bad debt ratio. |
“ The key to my success is simply good intentions as well as doing good to others and
nothing is more important in life than those two ”
Talking to Wayan is very fascinating, a simple
and humble guy who has a very essential life
philosophy that maybe if most people had, the
world would be a much better place.
When I asked him what is the key to his success, the answer was so simple “Good intentions and doing good to others”; it is that simple. He likes to think that by doing good to others, we all as a human beings will live peacefully and our younger generation will benefit from what we have done to others. Under his leadership, LPD Seminyak continues its contribution to the Desa Seminyak by supporting funds for ceremonies and sharing
the profit for the village development.
Moreover, the institution continues to help
out people in and outside Seminyak by giving
them financial assistance so that people who
live in Bali can have a better standard of living.
“ Going even further to assist the community! ”
As we all know, the rapid development of property has some negative impacts towards
the people who live in Bali. Selling land, which used to be uncommon for Balinese, has become a very normal thing to do. As a result some Balinese have continuously lost their lands and some become landless.
Wayan and his team is now creating a program
where they try to minimise the selling of land
by the Balinese their land or to maximise their
empty land by offering a partnership and funds
to build villas or any other type of property
than can generate the Balinese landowner a
higher return, rather than renting it, and to
avoid the need to sell it. What a honourable
mission!
“ Preserving and Preventing Culture Required a Strong Financial Support ”
The charisma of Bali is mostly coming from its beautiful culture and way of life. Of course
beautiful beaches and all the range of 1 to 5 stars facilities increase the charisma of this lovely island but Bali without culture will be the same as any other part of the world.
Wayan believes that preserving the culture is not just a lip service but it requires financial support and also a decent standard of living for all the people so that they can continuously perform the culture. LPD has prepared a yearly fund to help the village to perform ceremonies, build temples and contribute to the less unfortunate.
Talking to Wayan is very inspiring and makes
me think what would happen to the World if
all of us could think as simply as he does
“ This is the way the island should be and we shouldn’t change it! ”
The more I learn about Bali and the culture; I
am more convinced that we should not let the
globalisation and capitalisation destroy the best
of Bali!
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on peak
