One of the crown jewels in the Salim stable was Bank Central Asia (BCA). Its transformation to the country's leading private bank from one that was barely breathing in the early 1970s could be credited to the efforts of one person — Mochtar Riady, who Liem brought on board in 1975. Prior to Riady's entry, Liem's banks (including Bank Windu Kencana, co-owned with a Kostrad foundation) were in dire need of professional help. Both were nowhere able to offer fully fledged financial services. In 1973 Salim had two flour mills in operation and was constructing a cement plant. Big factories required huge funding, and Liem was one of the few individuals in Indonesia at that stage — still early in the New Order — who was able to line it up. His immediate rapport with Chin Sophonpanich of Bangkok Bank was critical for channelling seed money into his cement venture. Although he could tap into outside funds, Liem knew that gaining long-term strength hinged on developing his own banking capability. When Suharto came to power, Liem was already a “banker” in the sense that he partly owned banks, but this meant just possession of a licence, not any real accumulation of assets. In the late Sukarno period, Indonesia had scores of minuscule private banks, many of which were owned by politicians or their pals, but they were weak.

BCA started life as a textile company called NV Semarang Knitting Factory. Curiously, its articles of association allowed it to conduct banking activities. As the company was not doing well, Liem and a Hokchia friend named Tan Lip Soin purchased the licence in 1957 from the owner, a businessman in Semarang named Gunardi. Liem wanted the company for its banking licence, and changed its name initially to Bank Asia N.V. and subsequently to Bank Central Asia. He also moved its operations to Jakarta from Semarang. Liem, who was not yet an Indonesian citizen, installed his good friend Hasan Din as a director. When Suharto tapped Liem to be his cukong, he assigned Liem to cooperate with his generals at the Kostrad Foundation (Yayasan Dharma Putra Kostrad) that he headed. Bank Windu Kencana had been incorporated in 1954, but in 1967 it was reconstituted with several of Suharto's financial generals on its board. Liem and his two brothers were listed as co-owners.