People’s Bank empowers senior citizens with value-added deposit scheme and services

Friday, 23 October 2020 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

People's Bank has continued to empower the lives of senior citizens of Sri Lanka by providing them a wide array of products and services that ensure that they are able to live life to the fullest.

People’s Bank introduced the ‘Parinatha’ account several years ago to provide financial stability to senior citizens so that they can enjoy their retirement years in a happy, carefree manner. ‘Parinatha’ is a specialised account for senior citizens who are looking forward to living life to the fullest after they retire.

The account can be opened by anyone over the age of 55 years. Customers receive a free VISA International debit card which gives them 24-hour access to funds through People’s Bank’s extended local network of over 4,000 ATMs as well as the VISA ATM network internationally.

They are able to obtain loans of up to 90% of the account balance at one of the lowest interest rates in the market. They are also entitled to receive a bonus interest of 1% over the normal savings rate making it the highest interest rate in the market as well as concessionary rates for overseas pilgrim tours through People's Travels. Further, senior citizens have the peace of mind as their Enjoy the security of a state bank for their deposit.

People’s Bank also believes in educating and encouraging ‘Parinatha’ account holders to experience the Bank’s world-class digital banking services. As a result, the bank’s staff is always ready to help these customers to try out the revolutionary ‘People’s Wave’ mobile app through which they can use the internet on their mobile device to carry out their banking from any location, the ‘People’s Web’ internet banking portal and the ‘People’s WIZ’ account which allows digital agents to onboard customers in less than one hour and offers paperless retail loans.

People’s Bank also made history recently by becoming the first state bank to accept fingerprints of pensioners for verification purposes, in lieu of the conventional life certificate. In keeping with the ‘Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour’ manifesto of the Government which aims to utilise technology to enhance the efficiency and output of the State sector, the Department of Pensions recently introduced a facility that enables pensioners to use their fingerprint as verification instead of the time consuming process of obtaining and submitting a life certificate to the Department.

Accordingly, with this new facility any of the nearly 650,000 pensioners in the country, irrespective of whether they are a People’s Bank customer or not, can walk into any of the selected People’s Bank branches and conveniently provide their fingerprint on a specialised electronic device.

With the aim of helping Government pensioners in senior citizens with matters such as their medical treatments as well as children's housing, higher education and nuptials, People's Bank has also introduced a special loan scheme for senior citizens.

The loan scheme allows them to borrow an amount where the monthly loan instalment can go up to 75% of their monthly pension with a repayment period of up to 10 years. For loan periods of five years, the interest rate is 9.5% while it's 10% for loan periods of 10 years. The age limit for the loan scheme is up to 75 years and no guarantors are required.