HNB partners Cinnamon Hotels to offer LANKAQR payment solutions

Cinnamon Grand Colombo and Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo General Manager, John Keells Group Vice President, Kamal Munasinghe (third from left) exchanging the LANKAQR with HNB Deputy General Manager – Retail and SME Banking Sanjay Wijemanne. Others (from left): Cinnamon Grand Colombo Head of IT Shiran Tissera, Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts Vice President – Finance Shanaka Silva, HNB Head of Digital Business Chammika Weerasinghe, Digital Pay Products Executive Ishan Karannagoda, Lead – Product Management – SOLO Harold Elanco and Senior Manager – Business Development Piyakara Jayaratne 

HNB PLC has partnered with Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts to launch the LANKAQR facility for the renowned hospitality chain’s portfolio of restaurants. 

Following increasingly rapid adoption from Sri Lanka’s tier-one merchants, Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts is also coming on-board to offer guests at the restaurants of the hotels: Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo and Cinnamon Grand Colombo with the convenience of contactless payments via QR codes. 

“It is imperative that we continue embracing digital payments across all industries in Sri Lanka,”

 HNB DGM Retail and SME Banking Sanjay Wijemanne said. 

“The pandemic may have driven the initial conversion to QR based payments, but we are now seeing a new wave of customers who are using the facility for the convenience and reliability it offers across QR enabled platforms like HNB SOLO, which are gaining rapid traction and are a must-have among customers. Our robust tech infrastructure places us in a unique position to lead this expansion and we are delighted to enter the tourism sector with a partner as prestigious as Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts,” Wijemanne added.

HNB said notably, customers have the option of completing a transaction by scanning the Dynamic QR code, a unique QR code generated for the transaction. This allows customers using an app linked with the LANKAQR initiative to make contactless purchases at stores by simply scanning the Dynamic QR, which appears on the display screen of the Point of Sale (PoS) machine.

The facility is also beneficial to merchants as the integration of HNB’s system with the merchant’s cash PoS results in real-time confirmation of the purchase credited to the merchant’s account for JustPay transactions. Additionally, the transaction fee that the merchants are levied for using the ‘LANKAQR’ platform under Just Pay transactions is significantly lower.

Moreover, the partnership will enable all Sri Lankans, including customers of other banks, to complete transactions seamlessly at Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts. 

“The past two years have been a trying time for the tourism industry and the whole nation. But we are fortunate to finally see a gradual recovery take hold. In order to help the industry bounce back, we must be ready to change and adapt much more rapidly than ever before,” Cinnamon Grand Colombo and Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo General Manager, John Keells Group Vice President, Kamal Munasinghe said. 

“The addition of digital payment solutions brings an added level of comfort, convenience and safety for our guests. We also hope that our launch of QR payments will add further momentum to the expansion of digital payments across the formal and informal tourism and hospitality sector, which will create even greater value for our guests. We look forward to working closely with HNB to leverage their tech expertise to make the lives of our customers easier and better.

“The partnership also supports the CBSL Ratapurama LANKA QR campaign to ensure all QR code-based transactions are standardised and interoperable, facilitating faster, secure and low-cost digital payments to merchants,” Munasinghe added.