Category: Banking and Finance

June 25, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state run Bank of Ceylon has expanded its services inside camps housing nearly 280,000 refugees in the north of the island, adding mobile computerized branches housed in shipping containers. Last week the bank added four retail units to its existing branch in the Manik Farm refugee camp complex […]

June 25, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Nations Trust Bank which had uncovered a forex loss in its books said the losses would be offset “to a great extent” by other operations of its Treasury. NTB said its June quarter financials will be published as early as possible in July. “The Bank has discovered a […]

June 24, 2009 (LBO) – There would be more interest in Sri Lanka’s Seylan Bank if a larger equity stake than one third is offered to a strategic investor, the head of cash-rich NDB Bank which dropped out of the race said. “The environment today is different,” says Wickramaratne. “Today we have a – relatively […]

June 24, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Nations Trust Bank, a unit of the John Keells Holdings group, is probing a breach of operating procedure, but the bank is on track to meet half year profit targets, an official said. NTB’s voting stock fell 2.25 to 32.00 rupees Wednesday amid concerns among investors that profits […]

June 16, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lankan depositors should be more vigilant as hundreds of smaller unregulated financial firms are still in existence despite the collapse of a few high profile firms, officials said. “Those who invested in unregulated companies will not get their money back because there is no money to give. Going to […]

June 16, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s central bank which offered a third stake of Seylan Bank to a private investor has not awarded it to the sold bidder by Lanka Orix Leasing Company (LOLC) by the previously set deadline of June 16. Among those who expressed interest was cash rich National Development Bank and […]

June 14, 2009 (LBO) – A part of the pension funds of Sri Lanka’s private sector workers may be diverted as unemployment benefits to those who lose jobs in the current economic crisis, a media report said.The Sunday Times newspaper said authorities are set to take out billions of rupees of unclaimed Employees Provident Fund […]

June 13, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lankan private sector firms are too small yet to start mega infrastructure such as coal plants on their own, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) which is financing such plants in the region, said. The IFC, the private sector finance arm of the World Bank, likes to partner with the […]

June 11, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s central bank said banks have been given the nod to open 67 new outlets in the last three weeks in the north of the island after the area was freed of Tamil Tigers. “This trend of banking expansion in the Northern Province is expected to grow with the […]

June 11, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Commercial Bank of Ceylon is planning to finance renewable power plants in Africa with the help of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), an official said. Commercial Bank officials did not say who their engineering partners in Uganda would be. In July 2007 Sri Lankan power company Eco Power […]

June 08, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s The Finance Company, a unit of the troubled Ceylinco group said it lost 1.3 billion rupees in the March 2009 quarter, as net interest income turned negative and loan loss provisions increased. Investment in real estate was shown as 5,256 million rupees, investments in housing projects 1,140 million […]

June 8, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Seylan Bank group said profits fell 99.8 percent to 135,279 rupees in the March 2009 quarter, non performing loans grew steeply and net-interest income fell as its balance sheet contracted. Group net assets were up 1.6 percent to 9,519 million rupees. Gross assets shrank 7.5 percent to 151.7 […]