Category: Banking and Finance

Mar 28, 2014 (LBO) – BRAC Lanka Finance Plc, said it had hedged the foreign exchange risk of a two million US dollar loan from its parent by creating a forex deposit and borrowing rupees against it.BRAC International Holdings BV has given 3-year 2 million US dollar loan to BRAC Lanka at 7.0 percent a […]

Mar 27, 2014 (LBO) – Indunil Liyanage, Chief Marketing Officer of state-run Bank of Ceylon has conferred a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) by Colombo University.His doctoral thesis, on ‘Role Stressors and the Impact of Coping styles on Perceived Job Performance’ was based on 5-years of research. Liyanage already holds a Masters degree in management from […]

Mar 27, 2014 (LBO) – Fitch Ratings has confirmed an ‘AAA(lka)’ rating of HSBC’s Sri Lanka branch with a stable outlook. HSBC has seen loans growing 6.1 percent in the nine months to September 2013. Large corporate customers made up 64 percent of its rupee loans. Of the retail loan book, 43 percent was from […]

Mar 25, 2014 (LBO) – Payments through mobile phones have topped 700 million rupees a month, Sri Lanka’s Dialog Axiata said as Etisalat, a competitor tied up to use the service, in what officials said was the world first such partnership.Dialog group chief executive Hans Wijayasuriya said all operators in Sri Lanka had been invited […]

Mar 17, 2014 (LBO) – Former Sri Lanka Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal Harsha Abeywickrema has assumed duties at chairman of state-run Bank of Ceylon.Bank of Ceylon is Sri Lanka’s largest bank by assets. Bank of Ceylon said Abeywickrema joined the Air Force in 1980 as an officer cadet and was commissioned Pilot Officer […]

Mar 11, 2014 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Commercial Bank of Ceylon says it has seen a sharp increase in payments by debit card and 400,000 new cards had been issued over the past year.Outstanding credit was 49.3 billion rupees up from 44.4 billion rupees in December. The bank claims to have the ‘largest active debit […]

Mar 05, 2014 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Union Bank is talks with a foreign investor, TGP Asia VI L.P, for a possible sale of shares, the firm said in a stock exchange filing.The bank said it had received a “non-binding indicative term sheet governing further negotiations” over a share sale from TGP Asia. Any final […]

Mar 03, 2014 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s credit from commercial banks to state enterprises surged to 57 billion rupee in December 2013 ending four months of net pay downs of debt official data showed as a drought worsened in the country hitting hydro power. The subsidy deception hurts the poor most – who consume the […]

Mar 03, 2014 (LBO) – Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka (MBSL), a unit of state-run Bank of Ceylon said it was merging with two subsidiaries and become a finance company, under a regulatory directive. Instead, all three units will merge and operate as a licensed finance company. MBSL will merge with MBSL Savings Bank Limited […]

Mar 01, 2014 (LBO) – Books of Sri Lanka’s banks and finance companies are being evaluated by audit firms as they are moving towards mergers under a regulatory push, the Central Bank said. The ministry of finance and inland revenue department have agreed to deal with tax issues that expected in the consolidating lenders, the […]

Feb 28, 2014 (LBO) – Profits at Sri Lanka’s Seylan Bank Plc rose 71 percent to 797 million rupees in the December 2013 quarter from a year earlier, on wider margins, despite higher loan losses, interim accounts showed. Group gross assets rose 17.3 percent to 217 billion rupees in the 12 months to December with […]

Feb 28, 2014 (LBO)- Profits at Sri Lanka’s Hatton National Bank fell 38 percent to 1.8 billion rupees in the December 2013 quarter amid shrinking net interest income, interim accounts showed. The group reported earnings of 4.73 rupees per share. In the year to December the group reported earnings of 19.20 rupees per share on […]