Sri Lanka’s over US $ 12 billion or Rs. 2 trillion word funds holding, country’s largest pension fund that manages private sector workers life time savings – Employees Provident Fund (EPF) will come back to the stock market fairly soon according to Central Bank Governor Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy.

His comments came on the sidelines of the oration held to mark the 68th anniversary of the Central Bank, in which he recapped the activities and achievements of the Central Bank and insisted much had been done to improve stability in the country’s financial system. Central Bank Governor Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy had also said that the monetary authority has established sufficient safeguards to improve transparency and accountability in trading guidelines.  

“The segregation between front, middle and back offices has been made more entrenched and we are working towards the EPF coming back to the stock market fairly soon, once all the propriety work has been completed” Governor added. He further said that a lot of work had been done in terms of improving services and procedures, whilst the investment committee meets on a daily basis, new investment guidelines have been developed, and CCTV and voice recording systems have been put in place.

According to Governor Coomaraswamy EPF withdrew from trading in the aftermath of investigations into the controversial bond trades in 2015 that sparked public outcry and the appointment of a Presidential Commission of Inquiry. However, he said that the EPF has already returned to trading on the secondary market. 

Coomaraswamy further noted that there is a new auction system in place and it is working well. Central Bank had greater transparency introduced through the Bloomberg platform and the auction rules and the processes that they will use, which have all contributed to a more transparent and effective system of public debt issuance. On the debt management side, the passage of the Active Liability Management Act has given the Treasury and the Central Bank greater flexibility in tackling the considerable overhang of public debt and the Central Bank is confident that provided the country is able to manage its fiscal consolidation trajectory they should be able to manage the debt burden.

Dr. Coomaraswamy assured that the new measures would increase the credibility of transactions.