Commercial Bank joins hands with SME.LK to support entrepreneurs and SMEs

Thursday, 31 December 2020 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

At the launch event, BellVantage Chairman Amitha Gooneratne and Commercial Bank Chief Operating Officer Sanath Manathunge along with DGM Marketing Hasrath Munasinghe, AGM Personal Banking and SME Delakshan Hettiarachchi, Chief Manager SME Mohan Fernando, Manager SME Dilshan Fernando, Senior Manager Women’s Banking Kamalini Ellawala of Commercial Bank, and Lankabell MD Dr. Prasad Samarasinghe, BellVantage Executive Director Ajantha Peiris, BellVantage AGM Pathum Samaraweera, Senior Executive – Business Development Lakmal Wijayarathna and Dinuka Samarasinghe of BellVantage

Commercial Bank signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with BellVantage (a subsidiary of Melstacorp PLC, one of Sri Lanka’s premier conglomerates, managing a broad portfolio of businesses) to jointly provide the bank’s business owners with the SME.LK platform, enabling them to efficiently market and sell their products to the end consumers, as well as wholesale buyers, without an intermediary between the seller and the buyer.

SME.LK is the only Sri Lankan platform to partner with a Sri Lankan bank and together they provide sellers with an online shopping store, offering free registration, and requiring no monthly fees. This covers an unlimited number of products and is valid for a lifetime.

The platform provides a cost-effective and efficient means of marketing, order management, supply chain establishment, payment reconciliation, etc.

SME.LK facilitates trading for clients, producers, manufacturers, whole-sellers, and SME owners of Commercial Bank to sell their products from their home town, district and across the island.

SME.LK plans to expand the business in the future, giving Sri Lankan expatriates and overseas buyers access to Sri Lankan products which help boost the Sri Lankan economy through exports, bringing in much needed foreign exchange revenue into Sri Lanka. Commercial Bank introduced this trading platform initiative in order to create a pathway for the bank’s SME base to develop their businesses, fulfilling a national need for economic upliftment, during times such as these, where the COVID-19 pandemic has had a massive impact on businesses around the globe. The Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) contribute to almost half of Sri Lanka’s economy and provides employment to more than 52% of the workforce. The SMEs are thus an important part of the financial ecosystem and it is imperative that they get access to the right infrastructure to grow.

This is a great opportunity for the Sri Lankan business community to partner with Commercial Bank and enjoy this immense benefit which will enable them to grow their businesses with SME.LK.