Business

Developed in line with the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) Lanka QR mandate for licensed commercial banks, HNB SOLO offers the opportunity to complete transactions via the app while maintaining social distancing and avoiding the exchange of cash or cards when refueling their vehicles at a Lanka IOC Petrol Station.

HNB Solo users now have the opportunity to complete transactions via the app and avoid the exchange of cash or cards when refueling their vehicles at a Lanka IOC Petrol Station. The partnership inked in a post COVID-19 landscape, offers customers a safe and convenient payment option in a world in which social distancing measures will be in force for the foreseeable future.

"With the gradual move to the new normal, consumers are encouraged to strongly adhere to the mandatory physical distancing rules that are imposed by the government. This new lifestyle has brought about a significant increase in cashless and contactless transactions and we are fully committed to providing our customers with the safest and most secure payment options. In times like these, every effort can have a positive impact on our society. As such, we will continue to explore innovative solutions to support businesses and consumers as we face this challenge together," HNB Deputy General Manager- Retail and SME Banking, Sanjay Wijemanne said.

Customers can pay for their Petrol or Diesel by merely scanning the unique QR code generated with the Solo app. To adopt this cleaner, safer way to pay at Lanka IOC's 208 Fuel Stations spread across the isalnd, users only require a smartphone with the Solo Payment App installed.

"Our partnership with HNB to activate contactless payment options was brought about by our deep commitment in keeping our Customer attendants at Petrol Sheds and Customers safe and healthy in a post-COVID, new normal scenario. Contactless payments have completely changed the way customers pay for goods and most importantly, reduced the time spent in queues at POS terminals, which is an absolute necessity in today's world," Lanka IOC spokesperson said.

Providing users with complete freedom in digital payments, Solo by HNB is designed to offer users the flexibility to handle any transaction anywhere whether it be purchasing from an established retail franchise or even a small stall or three-wheeler.

Users can sign up with Solo by downloading the app from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store for free. Once downloaded, a user can register by entering the mobile number and personal details with no requirement for paperwork at a branch office. Customers also have the option of connecting the app directly to their bank account or VISA/ MASTER credit or debit card from any bank.

Thereafter, the user can scan the Solo QR code at any Solo merchant to complete any transaction through VISA, Master Card or JustPay platforms with just the swipe of a screen.

Lanka IOC PLC is engaged in Retail Sales of Petrol/ Diesel through its strong network of Fuel Stations across the island and stands committed to participate in meeting the energy requirement of the country. The company is also a leading Bunker Fuel supplier at Sri Lankan Ports. In addition, Lanka IOC is also engaged in the blending and marketing of Lubricants under the brand name of SERVO.

With 252 customer centres across the country, HNB is one of Sri Lanka’s largest, most technologically innovative banks having won local and global recognition for its efforts to drive forward a new paradigm in digital banking. Over the recent past, the bank has continuously won prestigious accolades including being declared Best Retail Bank in Sri Lanka by the Asian Banker Magazine. Locally, HNB leads the Business Today Top 10 rankings and also claimed seven awards at the Best Corporate Citizen Sustainability Awards 2019. The first Sri Lankan bank to obtain an international credit rating, HNB is rated on par with the sovereign by Moody’s Investors Service, and the national long term rating of HNB revised upward by two notches to AA+ (lka) recently by Fitch Ratings (Lanka) Ltd.

In an effort to finance a grassroots revival of the Sri Lankan economy in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, HNB PLC announced the launch of a Rs. 5 billion relief fund which will be used to provide working capital support to the bank’s substantial portfolio of Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) customers.

“Following on the action taken by Government and public health officials to curtail the spread of COVID-19 in Sri Lanka, a new sense of normalcy is gradually being restored. Moving forward, our next major challenge is to similarly contain the damage inflicted on the health of our nation’s economy from nearly three months of relative stagnation. HNB is fully committed to partner with all stakeholders in this endeavour,” HNB Managing Director/CEO, Jonathan Alles stated.

The HNB COVID recovery fund will be leveraged to bolster assistance to the SME sector by complementing the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) supported Saubagya Covid -19 Refinance Loan Scheme.

Hence applicants who are unable to secure Government funded loans at 4% p.a. will be given the option of securing a working capital loan via the HNB COVID relief fund at a concessionary interest rate of just 8% p.a. for a maximum period of 24 months.

In this manner, HNB aims to utilise its own internally generated funds to support Government objectives of ensuring that as many viable SMEs are provided priority access to funding to support them through the disruptions caused by the COVID pandemic.

“Given our pioneering role and vast client network in the SME space, HNB is ideally positioned to assist this vital sector – which collectively accounts for nearly half of all employment in Sri Lanka. Many of these businesses are facing extremely constrained cash flows, but with the right support, they still have the potential to recover and eventually thrive.

“As a bank we understand that these are difficult times, and so we are doing everything we can to be flexible with repayments and assist customers in any way we can to get through this uncertain and volatile period. We remain confident that the launch of this fund - which operates independently from the Saubagya COVID loan scheme - will help catalyse an organic grassroots revitalisation of the Sri Lankan economy in the months to come,” HNB DGM - Retail and SME Banking, Sanjay Wijemanne explained.

As the first private sector commercial bank to enter the SME space, HNB has a long history of supporting SME development in Sri Lanka. Over the past year, the bank took further extraordinary measures to assist SME clients, initially through the provision of loan moratoriums and working capital loans to businesses negatively impacted by the Easter Attacks of 2019.

Additionally, the bank also seeks to actively align its operations with national priorities. Prior to the current COVID-related stimulus packages, HNB was intensively engaged in promoting Credit Support to Accelerate Economic Growth to support SMEs engaged in manufacturing, services, agriculture and related value-added businesses that were facing challenges stemming from a subdued macroeconomic environment.

This support was further extended to SME clients following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. At present, HNB has facilitated over 2,500 clients to apply for relief under the CBSL Saubagya working capital loan scheme, in addition to providing over 75,000 individuals and enterprises with debt moratoriums.

Serving as a partner in progress to the entire nation, HNB also maintains regular engagement with SME clients in order to proactively identify instances in which customers are impacted by natural disasters. In such instances, the bank will regularly approach clients in order to discuss their difficulties and extend relief in the form of debt moratoriums, assistance with insurance claims, concessions or delayed payments in addition to offering lending facilities to help restart businesses impacted by natural disasters.

TradeLens provides visibility across the entire supply chain, from booking to clearance to payments and is built on a wealth of input from the industry including direct integrations with more than 110 ports and terminals, 15+ customs authorities around the world and an increasing number of intermodal providers.

Insee Cement sales, marketing and innovation executive vice president Jan Kunigk said, “Our contribution to uplifting the nation’s economy is of immense value in rebuilding Sri Lanka during post-pandemic recovery. Insee Cement’s ability to efficiently deliver our full capacity of high-quality cement needed by individual house builders and concrete business partners has always been ensured.”

His appointment is effective immediately, the ride-sharing giant said in a statement on Thursday.

While making the announcement Pradeep Parameswaran, Regional General Manager for Asia Pacific, said, “I’m delighted to announce that Prabh is replacing me as Uber’s new President for India and South Asia, one of our fastest growing and most strategic markets."

"Prabh is a passionate and innovative leader and has been instrumental in helping build Uber from the ground up and established our category leadership in the ride-sharing market. I’m confident Prabh will exceed our expectations by leading Uber India SA on to the path of profitability, further consolidate our partnership with public transport authorities, continue our growth trajectory by expanding Auto and Moto to the next batch of cities, and build iconic teams.’’

Commenting on his new appointment Prabhjeet, said, “I’m thrilled to have been given the responsibility of leading Uber in India and South Asia, and look forward to collaborating with exceptional teams and gifted colleagues across the Uber family to strengthen our services and product offerings."

HCL Technologies plans to create over 1,500 new local employment opportunities for freshers and experienced professionals within the first 18 months of kick-starting its operations from its office in Colombo, according to a statement.

A key part of HCL's business and development strategy in Sri Lanka will be to use local talent pool in Sri Lanka will be to use local talent pool in the country for global assignments, it added.

"I am hopeful HCL will be able to create employment opportunities for the people of the country, and people of Sri Lanka will have access to the global work environment right in their own country. We are excited about this and I am hopeful Sri Lanka will soon emerge as an IT destination for more companies," Susantha Ratnayake, chairman of the Board of Investment (BOI) of Sri Lanka, said.

Srimathi Shivashankar, corporate vice-president of HCL Technologies, said the company is keen on hiring and engaging with the highly skilled and talented people of Sri Lanka.

"Our delivery centre in Sri Lanka will play an important role to serve our Fortune 500 and Global 2000 clients and partners throughout the globe," Shivashankar added.

HCL had joined hands with the BOI of Sri Lanka in February this year to launch its local entity -- HCL Technologies Lanka (Private) Limited -- and set up its first delivery centre in the region.

Through this entity, HCL will provide services to global clients in the areas of applications and system integration services and infrastructure services.

HCL will also implement its Work Integrated Education Program to foster growth by actively cooperating with local information and communication technology and engineering institutions to develop and train the local talent pool.

For freshers, HCL will focus on hiring A Level, Higher National Diploma students through HCL ESOFT Training & Hiring Program, the statement said.

In its milestone 50th‘Top 1000 World Banks’ ranking, ‘The Banker’ magazine, published by the Financial Times of the UK, has ranked Commercial Bank at No 878, primarily on the basis of the Bank’s Tier I capital.

“Commercial Bank was the first Sri Lankan bank to enter the Top 1000 World Banks ranking, and to remain on this ranking for 10 consecutive years in the midst of local and global challenges is a strong testament to our strength and resilience,” the Bank’s Managing Director S. Renganathan said.

The model refers to 30 key ratios to score and rank banks, country by country, on their performance in eight categories. Each bank’s performance across these categories is then used to generate an overall ‘best-performing bank’ score and ranking.

Flight EY265 will depart Colombo on Thursdays and Saturdays at 0135 hours, landing in Abu Dhabi at 0430 (local time). From Abu Dhabi, the service connects to Barcelona and Zurich on a weekly basis, and to Dublin, Frankfurt, Geneva, London, Madrid, Milan and Paris twice weekly.

In November 2019, Sri Lanka’s central bank announced that it is looking for tech firms that can develop a PoC shared KYC platform to be used in the banking industry. The aim of this system is to update and share the data of customers using blockchain.

Central Bank Director Payments and Settlements D. Kumaratunge was quoted by local press saying, “We invited software companies to develop a shared KYC PoC free of charge, as a national project. The response to join this project, both locally and internationally, has been extremely heartening and we are happy to say that we have finalised selecting suitable applicants to begin development shortly.”

A total of 36 firms applied for the project, including a couple of foreign companies, according to the central bank official. Three firms—one of which was a foreign tech firm—were shortlisted.

The Central Bank expects the platform to support the efforts to boost financial inclusion in Sri Lanka, as well as strengthen the financial sector efficiency.

According to the Central Bank, “The party selected to implement the PoC will neither be prejudiced from applying for any subsequent commercial development of a shared KYC facility that may take place nor would the company obtain any preference due to their engagement in this POC development.”

The project is expected to be completed in six to nine months’ time.

The new site in Piliyandala commenced operations in the first quarter of 2020, following the transfer of production from its Rathmalana facility. The new factory provides room for further expansion, with no disruption to customer service, and offers an alternative source for volume production of magnetic components outside of China. As with all ETAL Group manufacturing facilities, following the relocation, ETAL Group Pvt Ltd remains fully certified to ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001.

“Our exciting new facility provides us with the infrastructure to produce higher volumes and the space to add to our existing capabilities going forward. Its opening is a just reward for our dedicated team of employees, many of whom have been with us since the conception of the company. Currently we employ 250 workers in Sri Lanka and have the additional space required to more than double this, meeting growing demand for our consistently high-quality products,” says Scott Robinson, General Manager of ETAL Group Pvt Ltd, in a press release.

The new site in Piliyandala is located in a 5600 square metre compound with 3400 square metres of production floor area and a modular internal infrastructure that allows for flexible, efficient and cost-effective manufacturing.

Capabilities at the new factory include a computer aided component design suite, a mechanical workshop, automatic fine wire winding (linear and toroidal), manual winding, NC and manual soldering, planar assembly, vacuum encapsulation, vacuum varnish impregnation, ferrite core grinding, reflow and electrical verification to fully cover the manufacturing requirements of a wide range of standard and custom designed inductive components and assemblies.

Regardless of the fragile performance of the sector, Siyapatha Finance recorded a robust asset growth of 13%, coming close to the projection for the year despite the unfavourable circumstances of the time. The company’s profit before taxes grew by 7%, whereas the topline saw an increase of 13%, ending the year with equanimity. Profit after tax for the second half of the year reflected a growth of 164% over the first six months of the year.

The successful performance was achieved as a result of shifting the focus on to two key market segments in which Siyapatha Finance holds high levels of competency. Consequently, Micro Leasing was added to the core business areas of Leasing and Gold Loans. Micro Leasing caters to a segment that has high potential and represents a majority of enterprises in the country, including small and medium businesses. Siyapatha Finance has recognized the importance of catering to this segment by funding and uplifting them, while ensuring that depositors are secured.

The assurance of trust that customers of Siyapatha Finance have experienced since inception was reflected by the successful mobilization of Rs. 1.5 billion through a listed subordinated debenture issue. The rated, unsecured subordinated, five-year debenture issue had an initial tranche of Rs. 1 billion with an option to raise by Rs. 500 million, in the event of an oversubscription of the initial tranche.

Maintaining high standards of governance and compliance with all statutory governance standards are paramount to financial institutes. In 2019 Siyapatha Finance strengthened the Risk and Compliance functions by forming two separate divisions for each function. Furthermore, the company has not recorded any departures from provisions of the Finance Companies Direction No. 3 of 2008 and subsequent amendments on Corporate Governance issued by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka or the Colombo Stock Exchange. Siyapatha Finance voluntarily adopted The Code of Best Practices on Corporate Governance 2013 issued jointly by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka.

Ensuring sustainability, Siyapatha Finance has also focused on its core strength of serving the targeted segments with a range of financial solutions. This has enabled the company to continuously maintain the value of its services. Siyapatha Finance executes a strategy that enables financial inclusivity of targeted customer groups, including small and medium clientele, through finance Leasing, Gold financing and deposit mobilization. This is achieved by geographical expansion and market penetration, along with a diverse offering of Leasing and Gold Loan products. The use of IT infrastructure and presence on digital platforms will be other avenues that are to be explored in order to strengthen market share. Improved effectiveness and faster response time will be prioritized to ensure a healthy course of progress for the customers and all other stakeholders.

The challenge for 2020 will be to manage in an economy striving to recover during the rest of the year. Despite the hurdles and unfavourable circumstances in the industry as well as the economy in general, Siyapatha Finance has distinguished itself by posting an impressive performance in the 2019 financial year and looks forward to sustaining the spirit of accomplishment in the future.

Operations at the Colombo Port are now returning to normal, despite a few delays in container clearance.

The container backlog at the Colombo Port caused by the Covid 19 closure has now been cleared and the Port has already started the usual operations.

All Ceylon Container Transport Employees’ Union (ACCTEU) General Secretary B.I. Abdeen has explained that although the containers stuck due to the Covid 19 have been cleared, the usual delay is still there when releasing the containers.
“We have been talking about this issue for years but the problem remains the same. This delay is not because of Covid 19,” Abdeen has added.

The Colombo Port is packed with over 40,000 containers after the Covid 19 crisis disrupted economic activities in April, but three container terminals at the Port have been operating throughout the crisis at full capacity.

However, vessel calls have started to decrease.

With lockdown restrictions being eased by the Government on 11 May, the shipyard, which had been operating at a 20-30% capacity, providing only essential repair services and completing vessels undergoing repairs in the yard, is now returning to normal levels.