CDB signs up for SLIPS through COMBank

Citizens Development Business Finance PLC (CDB) recently signed up for the Sri Lanka Interbank Payment System (SLIPS) through Commercial Bank, the first-ever to do so in the non-banking financial institutions category.

SLIPS is an online interbank electronic fund transfer (ETF) system whereby the movement of funds from one account to another takes place without the corresponding piece of paper. Crediting and debiting of accounts are thus handled more promptly and accurately without the need to write cheques, pay orders or vouchers. Moving electronic records rather than paper, results in payments being processed much efficiently with advanced security features and audit trails.

Director/Chief Operations Officer of CDB Roshan Abeygoonewardena said: “Becoming an affiliate member of SLIPS enables us to transfer funds in the most reliable and secure manner from one account to another. This will bring greater convenience to our customers with a value driven and efficient solution. Today time is a precious commodity and customers demand a speedy service in their day-to-day transactions of funds.

“SLIPS will enable CDB to reduce the queue that is normally associated with fund transfers at branch level. Since we are the first in the industry to offer this service, this will also create a competitive advantage for us in delivering superior service to our customers. This will also further enhance our operational efficiency in creating a paperless environment which will contribute towards maintaining our cost ratios and thus adding back to our bottom line.”

LankaClear CEO Sunimal Weerasooriya said: “We are happy to register CDB as a Secondary Participant in SLIPS and we believe that CDB would be able to provide value added services to its valued customers through the many features provided through SLIPS. LankaClear has been continuously improving the SLIP System to bring more efficiency, reliability, security and features to the system. We are now in the process of implementing further enhancements to the system which would greatly benefit the users.”

Commercial Bank’s Assistant General Manager (Operations) Palitha Perera said: “The need for speed, security and convenience in financial transactions continues to grow by the day. Commercial Bank is at the forefront of driving the use of IT for fund transfer solutions. As one of the most active users of the SLIPS, we are happy to promote its use by supporting affiliate users such as CDB.”

Commercial Bank is the largest private bank in Sri Lanka, and the highest ranked Sri Lankan Bank in the World’s Top 1000. It operates a network of 219 service points in Sri Lanka and the country’s single largest network of 521 ATMs. CDB will synergise the strengths of these networks to offer its customer more prompt service.

Sri Lanka Inter Bank Payment System or SLIPS as it is commonly known enables electronic fund transfers on T+0 and T+1 basis and is governed by the Electronic Transactions Act, the Monetary Law Act and the Payment and Settlement Act.