Sri Lanka’s multi-geographic, multicurrency and multicultural financial conglomerate LOLC Holdings PLC is planning to make forays into new countries in 2020/ 21 while further strengthening its existing businesses.

“Our success in global markets inspires us to enter new markets and we have exciting plans, to make forays into new countries in 2020/21,” LOLC Holdings PLC Deputy Chairman Ishara Nanayakkara told shareholders in the annual report 2019/20.

Revenue from overseas operations is the major contributor to Group profitability, Nanayakkara reiterated.

LOLC's financial services footprint now stretches across Cambodia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Indonesia, Nigeria and Zambia.

LOLC Cambodia has grown to become the fourth-largest microfinance institution in terms of portfolio size, recording an impressive performance with a 57% YoY growth of its earnings to conclude the year under review.

LOLC Myanmar, a Greenfield operation and the first investment of its kind from Sri Lanka in Myanmar, has now become the fourth-largest microfinance institution among 174 market players in the country in just over five years of operation.

LOLC’s entry into Indonesia has seen the company grow to 20 branches in the regions of Java and Sumatra Islands. With a population of over 265 million and more than 40% of households classified as ‘very poor’, LOLC Indonesia is transforming lives of customers at the bottom of the pyramid.

Likewise, LOLC’s microfinance operations in Philippines with LOLC ASKI Finance and Inter Asia Development Bank are creating a sustainable social impact.

“Our continuous stride to create an impact on the bottom of the pyramid in local and global markets to bring financial inclusion to those who are usually excluded from mainstream banking is evident in how we uplift them from micro entrepreneurs to SME status through focused microfinance solutions,” he said.

The year under review also witnessed LOLC’s expansion into Sierra Leone with its investment in Sunbird Bio Energy Sierra Leone Ltd, the largest bio massed power generating company in the world with over 23,500 hectares of an integrated farm that also generates sugar and bioethanol. It has massive potential in generating sugar and bioethanol and provides green electricity to the national grid of Sierra Leone.