Category: Banking and Finance

Apr 04, 2014 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Bank of Ceylon said it financed the building of 368 kilometres of roads as part of credit given to the state its main shareholder, 30.9 billion rupees for water projects and 5.2 billion rupees for hotels. The bank said its net interest margin narrowed to 3.3 percent to […]

Apr 01, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s central bank said it had approved in principle mergers among a few banks and non-bank lenders, in a regulator driven bid to build a financial sector made up of fewer, larger firms.Several non-bank lenders have seen bad loans rise over the past few years amid tighter economic conditions […]

Apr 01, 2014 (LBO) – Standard Chartered Bank said it had structured a 150 million US dollar equivalent Islamic finance facility for state-run Sri Lankan Airlines which was partly secured by a government guarantee and receivables.In 2012 SriLankan raised a 175 million US dollar equivalent facility from Gulf banks. “The proceeds of the facility will […]

Apr 01, 2014 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s two largest state banks have taken a 20 billion rupee hit on credit losses in 2013 and had slashed their troubled gold-backed loan portfolios as the precious metal’s price slumped, interim accounts show.State-run People’s Bank set aside 11.7 billion rupees as general provisions in 2013 up from 3.2 […]

Apr 01, 2014 (LBO) – Krishan Balendra, has been appointed chairman of Sri Lanka’s Nations Trust Bank.NTB said in a stock exchange filing that Arjuna Gunaratne, who had been on the board of the bank from 2005 is stepping down to comply with a regulatory direction limiting a director’s tenure to nine years.Balendra will take-over […]

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 […]