National Savings Bank marks 51 years of uncompromised trust

NSB Building 

By Ajith Peiris

The premiere specialised savings institution of Sri Lanka, the National Savings Bank completes its 51st anniversary on 16 March.

By amalgamating the unique traits of money saving and thrift with the new technological advancements the bank was able to deliver practical solutions underpinned by superior customer service.

Even though our journey can be summarised for half a century, reigns of NSB draws bank till 1832 where the bank was inaugurated as the ‘Ceylon Savings Bank’ by the governor then Sir Robert Wilmort Hortan to encourage the Sri Lankans to engage with the formal banking sector and to save money. In 1885, Sir Ponnambalam Ramanadan took leadership in starting the ‘Ceylon Post Office Savings Bank’. 

By 1938 the Postal Department installed the ‘Savings Certificate Section’ and its services. Afterwards, with the outbreak of World War II the ‘Ceylon War Movement’ was formed, and it was responsible for providing loan payments to fund the war. Finally, in 1972 the National Savings Bank was made combining all the four above-mentioned institutions by then Finance Minister Dr. N. M. Perera under the parliament act No: 30 of 1971.

Today we have customers in all avenues of life, in every social strata and with all kinds of income levels. Thanks to the traditional touch unique to NSB incorporated with technology, the people in the urban metropolises to folks in the rural villages have become our good friends.

As proof to our mission in spreading the message of thrift and saving to all parts of the county let’s dive down to our first annual report published in 1972. “The bank intends to open a number of new branches in villages. As we all know, the government takes a monumental effort to increase food production and as a result the people in villages receive a lot of money as subsidiaries which also is an additional income source. 

“This income should be diverted to the development of Sri Lanka through NSB. To see this money spent on non-durable goods, on things which don’t have a meaningful use to individuals or to society is a pity.”

The money saved with us are being used for higher purposes, these funds are being used to invest in building our economy, infrastructure and for the wellbeing of communities. Interest generated out of these investments are used to uplift savings by people.

When local savings sources get enriched the need for loans from external sources dries up, in return it’ll reduce our foreign debt moving forward.

With globalisation the financial industry changes by the day, the need for hard physical currency has diminished paving the way for digital currencies such as ‘cryptos’. Identifying the need to link with the virtual space the NSB have heavily invested developing our digital services. The cutting edge app i.e. NSB Pay and the internet banking service, eConnect, are the only such services provided for free of charge in Sri Lanka. These facilities are secure, customers can use them with their smart devices with ease of mind.

In the backdrop of COVID-19 global pandemic our economy came to a grinding halt, movement of people was restricted, economic activities were limited and the bank with its four thousand employees took the challenge as an opportunity and executed work from home and internet-based work environment solutions.  As a result, the bank was able to post the highest ever profit of Rs. 22 billion after tax for the year 2021.  Each and every year the bank has been enriching the government coffers with tax money which were used to build our nation.

Today we as a country are facing the most gruelling economic downturn of post-independent Sri Lanka. Whatever the reasons behind it now we have to come out of it by ourselves. To do so we as Sri Lankans will have to work as one. Our personal or professional targets should not interfere with the common goal of securing the economic wellbeing of the country. As independent citizens who grew up with the gift of free education and free health it is our time to rise for the betterment of Sri Lanka.

Many of the developed countries have gone through similar economic collapses in the last century, South Korea, Japan, China, Vietnam, Thailand are to name a few. All of these East Asian countries were struggling at one point of time, yet they overcame grit and sacrifices. Similarly, we the Sri Lankans will also have to make sacrifices from the meals, clothes, way of traveling, energy consumption etc.

As a specialised savings bank, we take great pride in leading our customers and people as a whole towards excelling at money management and being thrifty. For us the people of Sri Lanka are our greatest asset, and we vow to protect the trust bestowed upon us by all of you with the highest standard.

On the cusp of celebrating 51 years of anniversary we the National Savings Bank would like to thank all our citizens for their contribution in securing the financial sovereignty of our motherland and to the profit of the bank.

(The writer is the General Manager of National Savings Bank)