Exploring the digital frontier of HNB’s innovative trade services business

Serving as one of Sri Lanka’s first local banks to link the island to global businesses since its inception, HNB has been deeply entwined with the island’s trade providing essential trade and advisory services to importers and exporters alike for over 130 years.

The nature of global trade and commerce is changing at an exponentially faster pace, facilitated by the rapid emergence of new technologies and business models that are increasingly global in scale. According to HNB, Assistant General Manager – Trade and Financial Institutions Janath Ilangantileke, these changes bring with them fresh opportunities to tap into global trade and strong economic development nationally.

“Trade in international markets can often seem like a daunting challenge for Sri Lankan enterprises as such transactions are usually accompanied with complicated International rules and extensive documentation. The most basic of transactions, would require a very good knowledge of International Chamber of Commerce rules such as UCP 600, URC 522 and International Commercial (INCO) terms to ensure that each transaction is completed without any difficulty,” he explained.

Hence while HNB continues to offer the full complement of trade services – ranging from the complete structuring of trade facilities, Letters of Credit and the facilitation of entrepôt trade business, confirmation of letters of credit and negotiation of export documents to issuing of shipping guarantees and trade financing – the bank also places an equal emphasis on advisory services, awareness building workshops and networking of clients locally and globally.

“Most of the other banks operating in this space tend to offer a similar range of services, but where HNB really stands ahead, is in terms of our strategy of adding meaningful value to our clients at every stage. We have easily the largest number of technically qualified staff and Certified Documentary Credit Specialists (CDCS) in the industry and we use this wealth of knowledge to provide advisory services that go above and beyond what is typically found in the trade business,” Ilangantileke stated.

In keeping with its mission to provide the most comprehensive support to trade business clients, HNB maintains a 24 hour response service with dedicated personnel, who will take calls from customers any time of the day and who possess the extensive knowledge required to resolve any issue quickly and conveniently.

The country’s International Trade Business is expected to grow, due to the increased economic activity from the many development projects and greater focus on exports.

“The value-added services which HNB offers in trade today is therefore geared towards preparing our nation and all of its enterprises for a rapid growth in trade activity. Hence we continue to conduct workshops on international trade for clients at every end of the spectrum in order to keep them updated on the latest developments in trade and regulations,” Ilangantileke stated.

Catering to a wide variety of clients from large Corporates to businesses in the Mid-Market and SME sector, HNB’s next major priority is in facilitating the complete digitisation of trade services with a view of promoting sharp efficiency gains that will support the drastic up scaling of international trade coming to Sri Lanka over the medium to long term.

HNB has reinforced the partnership with Trade clients in their adaptation to digitalisation by guiding them through every step of their first transaction, explaining each process and the safeguards in place along the way to ensure that every transaction is completed safely, quickly and with complete ease.

In order to further reassure customers of the service standards, HNB Trade Service operations were the first to secure ISO Certification in year 2004 and have since been upgraded to ISO 9001:2015 status, following stringent audits by M/s Bureau Veritas.

Additionally, HNB also offers exporter/importer information and liaison, obtaining reports on prospective trade partners in order to further strengthen confidence in the business relationship. The bank also maintains a close relationship with the Export Development Board and various chambers in order to support customer transactions. This close relationship was also borne out by the recent launch of HNB SME Expo Credit services, which offers loans for pre and post shipment, at special interest rates on limited tangible security in order to fulfil working capital and trade financing requirements of the SME exporters.

The state of the art globally connected Treasury provides our trade customers comprehensive range of services relating to Foreign Exchange transactions, complimenting the Trade service functions of the bank.

“HNB’s local relationships in the trade services sector is further complemented by extensive international partnerships with a global network of over 800 correspondent banks whom we regularly interact, in order to ensure that HNB and our clients can transact with the global partners with seamless ease,” Ilangantileke stated.

HNB is also a market leader in facilitating many infrastructure development projects of the country providing financing and Bank Guarantees for such projects, leveraging on the relationships with the correspondent banks and thereby effectively contributing to the growth of the national economy.