HNB’s first Green Bank building in Northern Province

Hatton National Bank (HNB) recently opened a state-of-the-art green bank building in Jaffna. This is the first green bank building to be opened in the Northern Region and is the second such building built by HNB. The bank is the first Sri Lankan bank to open a green bank building in Nittambuwa in 2011. 

The Chief Guest for the event was HNB Acting CEO/Executive Director Jonathan Alles. He was accompanied by corporate management members of HNB; Chief Operating Officer Dilshan Rodrigo, Services Deputy General Manager Piyal Hennayake, Corporate Banking Assistant General Manager Arjuna Ratnasabapathy, Network Management Assistant General Manager Rohan Thambirajah, Human Resources Assistant General Manager Chiranthi Cooray and Chief Information Officer Sidath Wijeratne.

Alles was welcomed by the Regional Head T. Jeyarajasingam and the Jaffna Metro Customer Centre   Manager S. Sunthereswaran amidst customers and well-wishers. The new five-story building in Jaffna is an environmentally friendly design and construction maximising resource efficiency throughout its life cycle. The building is equipped with systems for solar power usage for lighting, rain water harvesting systems with treated waste water usage for landscaping, vertical landscaping systems to minimise glare and an automated louvre system, to minimise glare, sunlight and heat along with an intelligent air conditioning system. The building also has an advance BMS (Building Management System) through which the energy efficiency is monitored at a central point.

Speaking on the occasion Alles said this new green bank building in Jaffna is a monument dedicated to the people of the Jaffna peninsula for the unwavering commitment and loyalty shown by them over the last 40 years when banking with HNB. He said HNB is fully committed to the people in the North and East with almost 50 customer centres in the region, and noted that the bank has evolved with tradition while making significant investments to improve technology to provide innovative banking solutions.

He further stated that the new building will house the metro customer centre, the private banking floor, a fully equipped training centre and a 260 seat state of the art auditorium.  Alles thanked his predecessor Rajendra Theagarajah, for his vision and passion to build such a great bank building in Jaffna. Speaking on the occasion Shayan Kumaradas the Architect responsible for the design of the building stated that the Jaffna Green Branch building is the first building to have integrated sustainable services, monitored by the state of the art BMS system in the entire region and the first such building in the North to have a state of the art 260 seat auditorium and the first building to have elevated gardens along with a solar sensitive automated louvre system.

He also said that architecturally the building sets precedence to find the solution to post war-regional architecture going beyond the normal trend of Dravidian architectural style practiced in Jaffna which is normally emphasised with domes, pinnacles and Dravidian column capitols. Kumaradas further stated that the building tries to set a new trend in post modern Jaffna architecture by carefully conserving the spatial and progressional characteristics of local domestic architecture celebrated with local art forms but moving forward with an out of the box idea of ultra modern design in par with any building in today’s western world.