More than 2,500 institutions paid out Rs 11.6 billion in early salaries and bonuses over just three days in April 2017 via ‘Paymaster’ – the sophisticated bulk payments platform of the Commercial Bank of Ceylon.

The Bank reports that on the 5^th, 6^th and 7^th of April, Paymaster processed a total of 375,666 electronic payments on behalf of these institutions, with 53% of the beneficiaries being account holders of Commercial Bank and the rest customers of other banks.

On just two of these days, the 6^th and 7^th of April, Paymaster dispensed more than Rs 9 billion to nearly 300,000 recipients in an impressive demonstration of its capacity, the Bank said.

Paymaster enables organisations or individuals to make virtually any type of payment to multiple beneficiaries by simply uploading a file to Commercial Bank’s online platform. There are no limits to the number of transactions and if the paying party and beneficiary both have accounts at Commercial Bank, the transfer of funds is virtually instant.

Widely used by companies to pay employee salaries, commissions and numerous other payments to their suppliers and customers, PayMaster was upgraded in 2016 to offer a dual and multilevel authorisation module for bulk payments, a User Administration facility and a shared log-in feature for group accounts.

The new version also supports payment of interest and dividends, agent commissions, insurance claims, bulk utility payments and statutory payments to the Employees Trust Fund (ETF) and the Employees Provident Fund (EPF).

“The record disbursements prior to the Avurudu holidays reaffirm that Paymaster has become the bulk payment platform of choice for many businesses and institutions,” Commercial Bank’s Chief Operating Officer Mr S. Renganathan  said. “It is the benchmark for reliable and speedy large-scale payments, minimising transaction time, costs and the risks associated with the physical handing of money.”

The only Sri Lankan bank to be ranked among the Top 1000 banks of the world for six years consecutively, Commercial Bank operates a network of 256 branches and 658 ATMs in Sri Lanka. The Bank has won multiple awards as Sri Lanka’s Best Bank, Best Trade Bank, Strongest Bank, Most Respected Bank from a number of local and international institutions and publications over several years and has also been adjudged one of Sri Lanka’s 10 best corporate citizens by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce for several years.

Commercial Bank’s overseas operations encompass Bangladesh, where the Bank operates 19 outlets, Myanmar, where it has a Representative Office in Yangon, the Maldives, where the Bank opened a fully-fledged Tier I Bank in September 2016 and Italy, where the Bank launched its own money transfer service in November 2016.