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Friday Apr 26, 2024
Tuesday, 7 May 2019 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Gaining global recognition from the internationa
l banking fraternity, People’s Bank was recently bestowed with two prominent awards on the global banking platform.
The first prestigious award as the ‘Best Retail Bank in Sri Lanka’, Digital Bank in Sri Lanka’ and ‘The Most Improved Retail Bank in Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa’ was bestowed on People’s Bank at The Asian Banker International Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards 2019, held in Dubai, UAE.
The Asian Banker International Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards 2019 was instituted to recognise the pursuit of excellence amongst retail financial institutions. People’s Bank was selected from amongst more than 300 banks and non-bank retail financial services players in more than 42 countries via a rigorous audit-based approach. The Asian Banker is the region’s most authoritative provider of strategic business intelligence to the financial services community.
The second impressive accolade is the ‘Best Digital Bank’ award by Asiamoney Best Bank Awards 2019, held recently, which selected People’s Bank as the ‘Best Digital Bank’ in Sri Lanka. Asiamoney identifies People’s Bank as having excelled across a range of core banking activities over the past 12 months.
The winning bank is selected by a team of senior journalists, chaired by Euromoney’s editor, after receiving detailed submissions from market participants and in conjunction with research into the banking and capital markets by an editorial committee. Senior editors also visited each country to meet leading bankers and gather client and competitor feedback.
Commenting on these stellar achievements, People’s Bank former CEO/GM N. Vasantha Kumar said: “We are humbled by the enormous responsibility bestowed on us by these influential international awards from Asiamoney and The Asian Banker, placing us amongst the leading lights in the Asia Pacific and South Asian region. These awards are a clear validation of our retail and digital thrust, which has brought the bank to the forefront of technology innovation in Sri Lanka. People’s Bank’s digital drive and its fin-tech products have revolutionised the way Sri Lankans conduct financial transactions. These impressive awards only encourage us to continue our efforts to bring convenience and technology offerings to simplify and speed up financial transactions for the people of Sri Lanka, while being lauded on the global stage.”
While evaluating People’s Bank for the award, The Asian Banker’s panel of judges noted the Bank’s significant growth in retail deposits and revenue in 2018 as it made strides in automating workflows and improving customer experiences.
People’s Bank achieved significant growth of retail deposits and revenue in 2018, with retail deposits growing by almost 20% to about 16% market share, and its retail revenue rising by almost 30% year-on-year. ROE on its retail business posted an increase from the previous year, and it boasts one of the lowest NPL ratios in the industry. Additionally, about one million of the bank’s customers are digitally active, or about 7% of its total retail customer base.
People’s Bank has also made rapid strides in automating workflows, with nearly 100% of its retail banking workflow processes have been automated, up from around 80% in 2017. The bank also established digital account opening, resulting in a frictionless and paperless experience for customers. Account opening, activation of account cards and mobile banking can be done within minutes, compared to days for the previous account opening process.
In accelerating its digitisation agenda, the bank launched its technically advanced and feature-rich mobile application in 2018, resulting in mobile transactions tripling in volume. Additionally, the bank introduced a digital platform with features such as digital onboarding, internet banking, as well as mobile banking and loan origination systems for retail and corporate customers. The bank also launched several branch and omni-channel digitalisation initiatives, including revamped internet banking, data warehousing, and an e-remittance solution.
As the ‘Bank of the people’, People’s Bank has continuously innovated and improved on its products and services in a bid to serve customers better. Forging ahead on its digitalisation journey, People’s Bank plans to take digital banking to the next level and expects to roll our more fully digitalised branches over the coming months, thus fulfilling its sustainability pledge to reduce its carbon footprint and benefit the environment by promoting paperless banking.
While assessing People’s Bank as ‘Best Digital Bank’, Euromoney editors evaluated the fact that despite being a state bank, it has invested extensively in digital, having established 136 digital branches across the country, staffed by 500 digital agents, serving 165,000 digital customers. People’s Bank aims to double its digital customer base going into the 2019 financial year, aided by an extra 500 digital marketing agents equipped with Wi-Fi-enabled tablets and sent out into the market to help customers embrace a paperless world.
Demonstrating the benefits of digitalisation, People’s Bank is able to open a digital bank account in just five minutes (down from two or three days previously) and to issue and activate debit cards in mere seconds. In April 2018, the Bank rolled out an updated mobile app that includes 33 new features. It was an immediate hit, downloaded 100,000 times in the three weeks after its launch. In total in 2018, 310,000 customers downloaded the app, which was used to complete one million financial and eight million non-financial transactions, cumulatively worth Rs. 4 billion ($22 million).
The impressive credentials of both the Asiamoney and The Asian Banker awards reflect the high esteem that People’s Bank is held in amongst the Asia-Pacific region.
