NTB highlights future of customer-oriented banking

By Rahel Kirinde

Nations Trust Bank (NTB) yesterday spoke on their journey to becoming a consumer-oriented bank through their corporate campaign ‘Your Dream, Our Goal’.

The social media campaign enabled anyone who was interested to post their future dream on Facebook and have the opportunity to win an interest-free loan from NTB.

“We shortlisted 20 dreams and uploaded it back on Facebook and got the public to vote to pick the best dream,” said NTB Chief Marketing Officer Shaan Wickremesinghe. She revealed that they picked the top three and that each of them were given an interest-free loan of Rs. 1 million.

“The competition was a huge success. It proved that NTB continues to be considerate of our customer’s needs and demonstrated our commitment to achieving our vision of helping people and businesses achieve today’s goals,” emphasised Wickremesinghe.

The corporate heads of NTB also discussed how their own business units contributed to their corporate customers, staff members and society.

Speaking on the bank’s contribution to the SME industry, SME Banking Senior Vice President Bandara Jayathileke said: “The biggest requirement of SMEs is financial mentoring since many SMEs are not financially savvy. Statistics show that 75% of SMEs fail. Our goal is to ensure that this does not happen to our customers because even SMEs that are technical experts in their fields fail due to improper management of finances.”

He added that according to the Central Bank, 85-90% of all businesses fall under the category of SMEs and they are the driving force and engine of the local economy.

“We started the SME academy to train our staff to specialise in advising and guiding SMEs,” stated Jayathileke. He went on to say that at present most SMEs are start-ups owned by millennials who are extremely tech savvy and that they require next generation digital-based banking facilities.

Speaking on the importance of SMEs for the country, Jayathileke noted: “SMEs employ about 70% of the workforce and take on unskilled workers who would otherwise be marginalised by big corporations, hence we see this sector as one that can unleash the true potential of this country.”

Explaining how NTB backs individuals through leasing, Executive Vice President – Leasing Priyantha Wijesekara stated: “Apart from owning a house, the other major dream of people in Sri Lanka is owning a car. Obtaining a lease to purchase a car is extremely simple now because now it only takes 24 hours to obtain one as opposed to it previously requiring at least three to four.” 

He also mentioned that NTB was the first bank to get into two-wheeler leasing with it launching ‘My Bike’ leasing especially targeting youth with a minimum monthly income of Rs. 25,000.

“We were also a driving force of the hybrid car market as we launched the green lease project to make people switch from petrol cars to hybrid cars. We wanted people to drive more but pollute less,” Wijesekara stated.He expressed that this would also soon be the case for electric cars though it might not happen immediately.

Elaborating on the significance of leasing for the corporate sector, Wijesekara said: “By catering to business segments we directly contribute to the country’s economic growth because it enables businesses to expand even without having sufficient funding.”

Talking about the NTB’s special focus on its employees, Human Resources Executive Vice President Ramanika Unamboowe expressed: “Our young workforce is more interested in recognition for their hard work even more so than pay and benefits. That’s why we have the Nations Magnus Awards annually to keep our committed employees motivated.” 

She added that something like this was extremely crucial for NTB since 70% of its total staff was under 30.

“Just as much as we focus on bringing convenience to our customers we do the same for our staff. This year we launched the Nations connect app which is an internal app for employees connected to the human resources department which allows staff members to conduct all things HR related such as applying for leave, applying for OT and claiming travelling charges through the app,” stated Unamboowe

She also noted that the bank had flexible work hours which enables employees to start work any time between 7.30 a.m. and 9.00 a.m., a complete eight and a half hours of work and leave.

Discussing NTB’s journey to becoming a responsible corporate citizen and fulfilling corporate social responsibility (CSR), Group Company Secretary/General Counsel Theja Silva asserted: “NTB has undertaken the duty of contributing to the achievement of three sustainable development goals - Quality Education, Life on Land and Life Under Water - which in turn rounds up to environmental conservation.”

“For the past three years we’ve been certified as a carbon conscious organisation,” he said.

He shared that NTB’s main theme under their CSR campaign was ‘Empowering the youth’ and that as a part of encouraging university students they have partnered the University of Colombo to carry out programs to prepare them for the future job market.

“We have also set aside 1% of our profit after tax to work towards society’s collective dreams of accessible education and a clean world for our children,” Silva emphasised. 

He outlined that they provided fully-equipped computer and science labs to schools in several rural areas and had conducted multi-day workshops.

Stating that CSR was not limited to people’s wellbeing, Silva said: “We started the first private funded animal hospital for injured wild animals.” He added: “Our surrounding environment and wild animals are also integral to the collective vision of a sustainable future.”

Nations Trust Bank Plc is amongst the top 30 business establishments in Sri Lanka as ranked by Business Today magazine and is the benchmark for customer convenience, ably providing a host of financial products and services to a wide range of customers. NTB is also the bank behind Sri Lanka’s first fully digital banking and payments platform, FriMi.

Pix by Indraratne Balasuriya