Bank of Ceylon appointed as settlement bank by LankaClear for dollar online and draft system

Bank of Ceylon General Manager K.E.D. Sumanasiri (right) and Lanka Clear General Manager/CEO Channa De Silva exchanging the MoU. Others from left are: Assistant Manager – Domestic Foreign Currency Clearing Sanjeewa Premarathna, Manager – Trade Promotion Gihan Amunugama, Assistant General Manager – International Ranjith Ruwanpathirana, LankaClear Chief Operating Officer Dinuka Perera, Senior Deputy General Manager – Corporate and Offshore Banking W.N.P. Surawimala, Deputy General Manager – International, Treasury & Investment R.M.N. Jeewantha, Assistant General Manager – Offshore Banking Manjula Herath and Senior Manager – Correspondent Banking Prabhani Rodrigo

Bank of Ceylon has been appointed as the settlement bank by LankaClear for its inter-bank US Dollar Online payment system (USD On-Line) and US Dollar Draft on-line Image Transfer System (UITS). This selection was made through a competitive bidding process.

The agreement was signed last week by the two parties.

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) along with other licensed public and private commercial banks operating in Sri Lanka own LankaClear who is the operator of the national interbank payment network in the island. Established in 2002 as the most successful Public-Private Partnership in Sri Lanka, LankaClear functions under the brand name ‘Lanka Pay’.

In 2002, LankaClear introduced Sri Lanka’s first interbank UITS while in 2015 implemented USD online payment system as policy directives of the Central Bank.

The primary objective was to assist the economy and CBSL by minimising the foreign exchange outflow from the country for inter-bank USD transactions. Reducing the transaction processing fees for same and lower the time taken to clear USD drafts were the other main tasks of these two systems.

Among Sri Lanka’s registered commercial banks, 13 members participate in USD online payment systems while 22 members participate in UITS. Bank of Ceylon takes on the critical role of being the settlement bank for both systems, which was previously held by Sampath Bank PLC since 2006.