Working to empower the grassroots of the national economy, Sri Lanka’s premiere private sector commercial bank, HNB PLC conducted an Export Awareness programme for select Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) customers at its Kandy Customer Service Centre.

Organised in partnership with the Sri Lanka Export Development Board (EDB), the workshop drew attendance from some of the Central Province’s most promising SMEs, and was focused on supporting these businesses in identifying and leveraging on new export opportunities as a means of drastically expanding their earnings potential.

Taking place in late October at the HNB Kandy Customer Centre Auditorium, the programme was also supported with the participation of EDB Officials, officials of HNB Trade Services and Kingslog Logistics (Pvt) Ltd.

HNB is a pioneer of SME financing in Sri Lanka having partnered with a countless SMEs in their path to prosperity – with several having graduated to corporate level. The bank offers a comprehensive range of products and services to SMEs, such as Term Loans, Working Capital Financing, Project financing, Import & Export Loan facilities and Distributor Financing. HNB’s non- financial product offering consists of a host of value added products that transcends traditional banking services.

The value propositions offered by the bank includes; identification of potential markets for international trade, identification of buyers and sellers, E-Commerce solutions, ERP Solutions and an Equity funding platform for SMEs.

In 2017, HNB PLC in collaboration with the Export Development Board of Sri Lanka (EDB) launched the HNB SME Export Credit, a pioneering new facility especially designed to meet the requirements and aspirations of Sri Lanka’s burgeoning SME Export sector.

The product is aimed at fostering unprecedented new opportunities for export-oriented growth in the SME sector. Moving forward, HNB aims to continue its pioneering efforts to empower the small-medium enterprise segment through more workshops in other key regions across the island in order to foster greater financial literacy and promote digital infrastructure facilities among the sector.

These pioneering efforts have won the bank wide acclaim including being declared as the Best SME Bank in Sri Lanka by Asian Banker in the Excellence in Retail Finance Services International Awards 2019 and Best SME Bank in Sri Lanka by Asia Money.

Photo caption: SME-Export awareness programme in Kandy