Lanka Financial Services Bureau among top 5 SWIFT infrastructures in Asia Pacific

Lanka Financial Services Bureau Ltd. (LFSBL), the SWIFT shared infrastructure of Sri Lanka, has been included among the top five SWIFT shared infrastructures in the Asia Pacific region.

Headquartered in Belgium, SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) is the global leader in financial telecommunication services, and this is an honour, not just for LFSBL, but for the country as well. 

This recognition is in addition to LFSBL obtaining the SWIFT certification level of ‘Standard Operational Practice (SOP)’, which was achieved through the stringent adoption of the extremely high standards of security set by SWIFT. 

Commenting on this latest recognition, Lanka Financial Services Bureau General Manager/CEO Mihindu Rajaratne said: “We are delighted to be feted with the SWIFT SOP certification, which not only marks a significant milestone in our chapter, but also reflects our strong commitment, expertise, and innovative services we bring into the local market. Being recognised within the top five SWIFT infrastructures in Asia Pacific is a key accomplishment for a local entity, and the recognition has inspired us to go beyond in becoming the number one SWIFT shared infrastructure provider in the region.

“Such standards of which global certification is bound to boost the confidence of those institutions which are already connected to the network, attract new institutions to join our system and add value to the operations of the country’s entire financial industry. It also enhances confidence on security, reliability, and availability of a robust and resilient SWIFT Shared infrastructure within the country.”

With the certification of the SOP in 2013, LFSBL was recognised among the SWIFT shared infrastructures of Japan, India, and Singapore, and is now in the process of obtaining the Premier Operational Practices (POP) certification, which will enable the local company to be on par with an elite list of financial telecommunications providers around the world including the USA, Switzerland and Panama. 

“We are always focused on understanding the dynamics of our customers’ needs, so we fine-tune our product and offerings accordingly to provide optimum service in an environment which consists of disruptions of evolving technologies and multiple facets of cyber security issues. Further, the total SWIFT solution encompasses all the latest security measures that will not only ensure safe communication channels for SWIFT users, but will also help to set a benchmark in the local and international financial telecommunication communication sector for providing safe communication platforms with state-of-the-art technology,” added Rajaratne. 

The SWIFT shared infrastructures (connectivity and messaging) of LFSBL supports 26 of the 34 participants in the national payment system, and is patronised by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, three State banks, the Colombo Stock Exchange and leading commercial banks and primary dealers.

LFSBL continues to be committed to safeguarding the communication channels of its wide array of clientele by embracing the latest technology measures to keep abreast of the rapidly changing digital sphere, thus enabling them to expand business ventures with confidence. 

The SWIFT messaging infrastructure helps to reduce the cost of using an individual financial telecommunications and messaging infrastructure by 35 to 45%, with global standards of resilience, redundancy and business continuity. Furthermore, the SWIFT solution has a 24/7 data disaster recovery system which not only ensures that all financial communications are safe and secure, but also provides 100% reliability on restoring the original information in case of an accident.