HNB launches ‘Ran Govi Saviya’ to benefit farming communities

Monday, 4 July 2011 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Hatton National Bank (HNB) has been actively involved in rural development during the last four decades. The bank has been in the forefront by providing financial services to the rural community covering a wide and extensive area focussing on agriculture, agri processing, animal husbandry, fisheries, trading and other self employment projects.

Over the years the bank has gained a wide exposure in serving the rural community and has gone beyond the normal engagement of providing financial assistance by finding markets for the products that are produced through the rural sector. To facilitate this process HNB has organised and conducted a number of trade fairs in the rural hamlets of Sri Lanka.

The bank continues to promote a number of rural sector refinance and non-refinance credit lines and provides a comprehensive package of financial services for the development of the rural economy.

The bank’s wide network of customer centres especially in the outstations have disbursed over Rs. 20 billion in agri rural sector loans and the current outstanding is over Rs. 8 billion. To reinforce its commitment the bank has currently deployed more than 130 field officers including microfinance/agricultural experts to assist the rural sector banking operations.

As a part of its innovative initiatives to develop the farming community in Sri Lanka HNB has recently launched a new loan scheme, ‘Ran Govi Saviya,’ targeting the agricultural sector of the nation.

‘Ran Govi Saviya’ was officially launched at Tissamaharama by Hatton National Bank’s Managing Director/CEO Rajendra Theagarajah and the Guest of Honour was Central Bank of Sri Lanka Additional Director Regional Development M.S.S. Dharmawardena.

Deputy General Manager – Marketing and Retail Banking Chandula Abeywickrema, Assistant General Manager – Specialised Financial Services R.M.P. Dayawansa, senior bank officials and members of the farming community in and around the Tissamaharama area were present at the event.

Abeywickrema stated that the primary objective of ‘Ran Govi Saviya’ was to make today’s unsecure farmer get onto firmer footing with a sense of security. Finance will be provided to the farmer by way of a loan in exchange for their gold.

This loan, which will be backed by the Interest Subsidy from Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) under the New Comprehensive Rural Credit Scheme (NCRCS), will no doubt help bring a certain kind of union between HNB, the Central Bank, the farmer and the ever-so-competitive market.

He further highlighted how significantly this would contribute towards developing Sri Lanka’s rural agricultural economy with a great focus on tapping the latent talent of the Sri Lankan farmer.

The main attraction of this new scheme is that it will be offered at a very low interest rate of 8% p.a., thus making it very popular amongst the farming community.