LB Finance bags yet another prestigious award at NBQSA

At the recently concluded NBQSA – The National ICT Awards 2021, LB Finance PLC won the Silver Award in the ‘In-House’ category for their ECLIPSE Credit Appraisal System. 

The award ceremony was held at the Sirimavo Bandaranaike Memorial Exhibition Centre on 21 January and organised by the Sri Lankan section of the BCS The Chartered Institute for IT. 

Developed by ISO 27001:2013 certified IT Department and Centre for Technology and Innovation of LB Finance, the Credit Appraisal Module of Eclipse Core Finance System provides a perfect contactless solution for enabling transactions with minimal human interaction and plays a central role during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

LB Finance Deputy General Manager Information Technology Chethana Kahandugoda said: “We are proud to have won the Silver Award for the ECLIPSE Credit Appraisal System, which was crucial during the COVID-19 pandemic, to help our customers carry out their bank transactions with minimal fuss. As the world continues to transition into the new digital world, we are committed to using the latest innovations to offer a seamless banking experience. We are proud of the hard work by the ECLIPSE Credit Appraisal System team as they continue to build the infrastructure that will take LB Finance into the forefront of digital banking in Sri Lanka.” 

ECLIPSE offers an Omni-channel experience that allows employees to carry out their work seamlessly at their convenience across the Android/iOS mobile apps and desktop computers. Compared to the manual file system of the past, the new digital ECLIPSE System offers improved customer turnaround time in terms of credit approvals due to elimination of the hassle and delay of couriering manual files from different branches across the country.

ECLIPSE facilitates centralised lead management to capture and follow-up business leads received from different channels and the business leads are visible across the regional sales hierarchies. It also provides geocoding and tagging facilities that empowers marketing officers to work onsite at the customer’s location and upload photos real-time to a centralised system.

The Credit Module also uses a credit score backed by Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. This score analyses the customer’s internal and external loan repayment history, demographic information, historic appreciation/depreciation of asset values, historical loan to value ratios for a similar asset, etc. Ultimately, this score acts as a Decision Support System for the credit approvers to take better-calculated decisions on the customers probability of default.

The ‘In-House’ category of the NBQSA – The National ICT Awards recognises the most innovative software or hardware application developed by a company for internal usage within the organisation. The highest accolade in the category, LB Finance beat out 15 nominees that included leading banks, private organisations, government institutions and leading IT companies to take home the prize. 

Since 1998, NBQSA annually recognises outstanding achievements of individuals and organisations in Sri Lanka developing high-quality ICT products. As the world continues its technological domination, the competition provides a platform to gain overseas recognition and improve the standards and quality of locally developed ICT products to compete in the international arena.

Having revamped and digitised key finance products since 2017, ECLIPSE will continue to improve and build on its system to enhance its efficiency that would enable LB Finance to carry on effectively catering to customer requests.