People’s Bank claims trio of Gold Awards at prestigious LankaPay Technnovation Awards 2019

People’s Bank stole the limelight at the recently-held LankaPay Technnovation Awards 2019, bagging three Gold Awards for ‘The Most Popular Electronic Payment Product - Category A’; ‘Bank of the Year for Financial Inclusivity - Category A’ and ‘Best Common ATM Acquirer of the Year – Category A’, which are all highly coveted honours for which banks and non-banking financial institutions compete to demonstrate innovative digital technology. 

The LankaPay Technnovation Awards event is Sri Lanka’s first and only annual payment technology innovation awards ceremony.

The prestigious Gold award for ‘The Most Popular Electronic Payment Product’ was granted to People’s Bank for its mobile payment application, ‘Peoples Wave’, which has recorded 500,000 downloads within a short period of time. This award was chosen through a social media vote where 32,000 votes were recorded this year, three times more than the previous year. People’s Bank won by a wide margin of 16,000 votes. 

Furthermore, the ‘Bank of the Year for Financial Inclusivity’ Gold was bestowed upon it for directly facilitating banking and financial inclusivity to every individual in the country across its 737 branches and service centres island-wide along with its ever-increasing digital footprint. People’s Bank has steadfastly supported customers in the North and East even through the period of the country’s civil conflict, a fact which was noted by the panel of judges, which stated that People’s Bank valued customer diversity, enriched lives and was truly the bank of the people. 

The third Gold Award for ‘Best Common ATM Acquirer of the Year’ was based on the number of transactions carried out through People’s Bank ATMs. The transactional volumes were measured annually from 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2019. People’s Bank ATMs are preferred because of the bank’s digitisation expertise and accessibility, being the widest single automated machine network in the country. 

Putting customer convenience first, People’s Bank has made lives easier by launching applications to support a Common Electronic Fund Transfer Switch (CEFTS) System and Sri Lanka Interbank Payment System (SLIPS). People’s Bank now has over 230 self-banking units and over 1,200 self-service automated machines offering real-time access 24/7 throughout the year. People’s Bank also walked away with a Merit Award for Overall Best Performance of the Year.

Commenting on the bank’s spectacular performance at the Technnovation Awards 2019, People’s Bank’s General Manager and CEO Rasitha Gunawardana said: “This is a momentous occasion for us as this is the first time People’s Bank has received three Gold Awards at the highly-regarded Technnovation Awards - and to win three awards in one evening makes us very proud. People’s Bank has taken a pioneering role in digitisation and customer engagement by leveraging on digitally-driven solutions and initiatives, placing the bank at the forefront of digital innovation to bring the benefits of digitalisation to the entire nation. We would like to express our heartfelt appreciation to our customers and the wider public for placing their trust in us, which inspires us to innovate and expand, going from strength to strength. People’s Bank’s almost six decades’ experience in the industry positions us as the preferred bank for those who want to ensure the security of their financial future. Our exceptional staff needs to be credited for the bank’s strong performance at Technnovation Awards 2019 as it is mainly their hard work that has made this triumph possible. The confidence placed in us by all our stakeholders provides the impetus for us to keep forging ahead with our ambitious digitalisation journey.”

People’s Bank’s visionary digital transformation has seen the bulk of the bank’s conventional banking transactions emanating from digital channels. The very first fully-fledged People's Digital Innovation Center was ceremonially opened at York Street in 2017 and a further 300 digital branches and over 1,500 agents have since been added. The bank’s Self-Banking Units (SBUs) operating 24x7x365 allow customers to bank at their convenience. ATMs, Cash Deposit Machines (CDMs) and Kiosk machines for utility bill payments together embrace a host of banking services. 

People's Bank has also added mobile technology under its digitisation purview with its first mobile app People's Wave. Since its launch, People's Wave has become the most downloaded finance app in Sri Lanka, gaining an impressive 4.4 rating on Google Play Store and over 500,000 downloads during the short period since its launch. It has surpassed all other similar financial apps in the country.

Initiated in 2017 in a quest to drive financial inclusivity in the country, which is a key objective of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, the LankaPay Technnovation Awards intends to enhance the efficiency of the country’s national payment network. Banks, non-banking financial institutions and Financial Technology service providers that have remained steadfastly committed to this cause and excelled in this endeavour, vie for recognition under 15 categories. The initial shortlisting was carried out based on an evaluation of the performance of these institutions against set criteria, subject to an independent audit. 

In the second stage, shortlisted winners had to present before an independent and eminent panel of judges on how they achieved that performance and how they planned to build upon this with conviction. Outright winners in each category were then selected by the panel, based on the strength of their presentation and the novelty and feasibility of their future plans.