HDFC Bank shareholders approve new Board for transformation

HDFC Bank shareholders at the Annual General Meeting held on 30 June approved the appointment of Lionel Jayasinghe as a Director whilst Prasad Galhena was reappointed both as Shareholder Directors.  Further D. P. Wimalasena was nominated as an ex officio Director to the Board from the Treasury with immediate effect. 

The HDFC Bank is the only public quoted licensed specialised Bank in Sri Lanka. 51% of the Bank’s shares are owned by the State.  

A HDFC spokesman said these appointments are highly important to the Bank, as the Bank is presently in a transformation era, with high expectations towards progress in every aspect of Banking, starting from growth targets to capital enhancement progression. Recently, the HDFC was even granted approval by the Ministry of Public Enterprise Development after a 14 year long wait, to build the Bank’s Headquarters at a prominent location at Hide Park Corner.

Furthermore, the Bank is in the process of successfully completing another value addition venture to its financial management system – the Core Banking project “Apeksha”, which will replace the existing IT system. This will upgrade all IT related functions. This new and sophisticated IT system will cater to various demands of the Bank with accompanying high security features. The new core banking system will be an added advantage for the bank to accomplish its prime concept of “a Bank on Wheels” in another words realising its efforts to penetrate into untapped market segments in rural areas of the country.

Presently, the Bank’s Palm Top Team alone amounts to 150 employees, who contribute immensely to savings and deposit targets of the Bank. They perform as brand ambassadors promoting many other different products of the Bank at customer door steps.  This Palm Top Team is a unique concept that consists of young and energetic members who can be groomed for more productive jobs through a comprehensive training package to takeover more responsibilities in the future. The Bank plans to offer them a more flexible path and increase the number in line with the Banks Corporate Plan being drawn up for the next 5 years along with an updated organisational chart, in order to create more opportunities for these young men to generate income for themselves and the Bank.

 Lionel Jayasinghe (Non –executive, Independent Director) is an IS Consultant with thirty five years of experience in the ICT field. He is a Project Management Professional, Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) and Past President of the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), Sri Lanka Chapter. He was a director of the Board of Info Lanka Societies which is an umbrella organisation of IT societies in Sri Lanka. He has managed national level IT projects including the Sri Lanka Telecom Billing System and Electricity Billing systems. Jayasinghe has specialised in Software Quality assurance and Software Engineering standards and he managed the first project of implementation of CMMI level 4 in Sri Lanka. He has conducted many public lectures and presentations in IT Audit, IT Project Management, Software Quality assurance and Information Security in national and International conferences.

He obtained his Master degree in Business Administration, specialising in Data Warehousing and IS Audit. He has a postgraduate diploma in Business administration (University of Colombo) in 1996.

Jayasinghe is a member of Project Management Institute (USA), Sri Lanka Chapter, Information Systems Audit & Control Association (USA) and British computer society. In the recent past he served as IT Audit professional in the Central Bank of Oman.

Galhenage Prasad Indika Gnanasena, (Non- executive, Independent Director) is a fellow member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountant (CIMA) of UK, and a Passed finalist of the Chartered Institute of Marketing in UK. He graduated from University of Colombo (BBA Honors) and has an MBA (Merit) obtained from the same University. He is presently serving as the Chairman of AAICO Property Development Limited while functioning as a Board Director of Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, a Commissioned Member of the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka and as a Director of SLT Vison Com Ltd. Previously he has worked as Chairman for the Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority, National Gem &Jewellery Authority, Ceylon Shipping Corporation Ltd and Sri Lanka Handicraft Board – Laksala. He also has wide exposure in the areas of renewable energy, corporate restructuring, finance and business modelling and has worked as a team member in several foreign funded consultancy projects.

D.P. Wimalasena (Non- executive, Independent Director), is a Class 1 SLAS Officer and has been Chief Accountant at the Ministry of Finance since 2015. At present he is engaged in overall supervising of Financial Management at the Ministry of Finance. He also assists the Secretary towards efficient and effective management of financial resources of the Ministry of Finance and Institutions under purview of the Ministry.  Wimalasena holds a B.Com. (Special) Degree from the University of Colombo. He has passed the Chartered Licentiate conducted by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka. Presently he is following a Master of Arts (MA Economics) Degree at the University of Kelaniya.

With the latest appointments the HDFC Board comprises of R.J. De Silva (Chairman), G.P.I. Gnanasena, M. Surendran, R.M.J. Ratnayake, B.G.S. Gunathilake, L.S. Palansuriya, P.S. Punchihewa, R.H. Meewakkala, L. Jayasinghe and D.P. Wimalasena.