CRIB hosts Annual CEOs Forum and Institutional Awards Ceremony 2025

 Central Bank Governor Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe addressing at the CRIB annual CEOs Forum

CRIB Director/General Manager Pushpike Jayasundera addressing at the Annual CEOs Forum

Creditinfo Group Chief Commercial Officer – Credit Bureau Global Innovations John Cannon

• Event brings together Central Bank leadership, government representatives, and over 120 CEOs from across the financial ecosystem

The Credit Information Bureau of Sri Lanka (CRIB) successfully held its Annual CEOs Forum and Institutional Awards Ceremony 2025 titled ‘Data in Action – Change in Motion’. The prestigious event was graced by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka Governor Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe, who attended as the Chief Guest.

The forum brought together over 120 Chief Executive Officers and senior leadership from across the financial services spectrum, including banks, non-banking financial institutions (NBFIs), insurance providers, telecommunications companies, utility service providers, and other affiliated entities.

With data recognised as the fundamental building block of any digital economy, highlight of the forum was the presentation of CRIB’s Institutional Awards, which recognised outstanding institutional performance in areas such as data governance, data submission, regulatory compliance, and security. These awards aim to encourage best practices across the financial sector and to promote a strong, data-driven credit ecosystem in the country.

Underscoring the pivotal role of data in advancing the digital economy, the Forum served as a platform to deliberate on the strategic significance of secure, accurate, and well-governed credit information. The discussions highlighted the expanding scope of both traditional and alternative data sources, and their potential to be integrated into credit underwriting frameworks. Such integration is expected to facilitate the inclusion of nearly half of Sri Lanka’s workforce into the formal credit ecosystem, thereby accelerating the nation’s journey toward financial digitalisation and inclusive economic progress.

The event reaffirmed CRIB’s continued commitment to fostering transparency, innovation, and collaboration in the financial sector advancing the national agenda towards a resilient and data-empowered economy.

“The year 2024 has been a transformative year for CRIB. It marked a decisive shift from being a traditional repository of credit data, to becoming a dynamic, intelligent and technologically empowered institution, broadening its database and capacity,” CRIB Sri Lanka Director/General Manager Pushpike Jayasundera commented, delivering the welcome speech at the forum. “We more than doubled our database within the last six to eight months by onboarding all credit related data including gold loans, pawning, margin trading and factoring. This expansion has allowed us to build comprehensive credit profiles for citizens over 18 years of age who are economically active, thereby enhancing access to formal credit from registered financial and banking institutions. In this endeavor, we more than doubled the issuance of self-inquiry reports (MyReport) within a period of 12 months, demonstrating a growing public awareness of credit literacy and personal finance, as a result of continuous island wide awareness campaigns.” 

Central Bank Governor Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe took the stage to congratulate the CRIB leadership and team on the progress made by the Bureau in recent years in expanding the credit ecosystem. By promoting financial discipline among borrowers and encouraging responsible lending, Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe emphasised that CRIB plays a pivotal role in driving financial inclusion in Sri Lanka and underscored the importance of integrating emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data analytics into credit risk modelling as key priorities for the future.

“During the time of the pandemic, economic crisis, access to credit data enabled policymakers (including the Central Bank of Sri Lanka) to make timely data-based decisions, which helped us in stabilising the economy of Sri Lanka. It is a very rich, timely updated data base and we were able to utilise it for policymaking and policy direction,” Dr. Weerasinghe stated. Confident in the bureau’s journey forward, the Governor highlighted CRIB’s role in the development of a broader digital credit ecosystem including open banking, fintech partnerships and real-time credit assessment. “CRIB’s journey over the last several years is one of vision, perseverance and great impact. I am confident that the bureau will continue to innovate, adapt and serve as a vital facilitator of an inclusive, stable and sustainable credit ecosystem.” He further stated that CRIB should benchmark its practices against global and regional peers to stay ahead of the evolving trends in credit risk management. 

During his speech, CRIB Director/General Manager Jayasundera described the bureau’s continued alignment with regional counterparts such as India, Indonesia, Philippines and Taiwan by integrating alternative credit data to create advanced dynamic digital products. The bureau launched two powerful, transformative business analytics products during the CEOs Forum:

• “Monitoring and alerts” – a sophisticated portfolio management tool, enabling banks and finance companies to manage their large credit portfolios with real-time insights. 
• “Credit stat” – An analytical dashboard that provides institutions with detailed monthly performance matrix covering market penetration, risk exposure, delinquency trends, delivered within the first 10 days of each month to support data-driven decision making in management reviews. 

Several more innovative products were also announced to be currently under development at CRIB, including: 

• A dynamic MSME credit score incorporating alternative data to create credit profiles for underserved micro, small and medium-scale businesses.
• A blended score, being developed in collaboration with Lanka Rating, which compiles credit risk with affordability matrix using AI.
• A gold loan score, benchmarked with global gold pricing, offering tailored market risk assessments for the gold asset class.
• A revival score designed to reflect the unique circumstances of borrowers, adversely affected by external shock, such as pandemic and economic downturn.
• A dedicated credit report tailored to the requirements of the microfinance sector.
• A downloadable CRIB mobile app providing real-time access to credit profiles and CRIB scores is in the advanced stages of development.
• A Secure Transaction Registry, which will enable MSMEs and underbanked individuals to use movable assets as collateral, thereby revolutionising the credit ecosystem.

In addition, Jayasundera stated that CRIB is also proceeding steadily towards cross-border data sharing, supporting migrant workers and attracting foreign investors to Sri Lanka. To empower data-driven decisions, CRIB has also launched advanced business analytic tools, offering institutions actionable insights to market concentration, risk exposure and delinquency levels. “We are committed to transform CRIB into a fully digital, intelligent and inclusive institution at the heart of Sri Lanka’s digital economy,” he concluded, while acknowledging the valuable guidance and support extended by the Chairman and the Board of Directors.

The Award Ceremony saw CRIB presenting Bronze, Silver and Gold awards in Data Management and Compliance for both highest validity and updated information validity categories. The forum concluded successfully with a networking session that saw the participating CEOs initiate dialogue with CRIB representatives and relevant regulatory commissions, showing great interest and promise in driving the data digitalisation mandate forward.