Sri Lanka’s best digital bank, HNB PLC won widespread recognition for its efforts to spark a new paradigm in digitally enabled banking across the domestic industry, winning three awards at the second annual Lankapay Technnovation Awards 2018.

Expanding on its strong showing at last year’s inaugural event, HNB was presented with Merit Awards for Bank of the Year for Excellence in Customer Convenience and Best Common ATM Acquirer of the Year in addition to receiving the Runner-Up Award for Best acquirer for US dollar Online Payments.

The Lankapay Technnovation Awards were first launched in 2017 with the objective of creating a platform for the recognition of payment technology innovations capable of supporting a more rapid transition towards a thriving, secure and convenient, island-wide electronic payments network.

“Digital and technological innovation at the heart of HNB’s transformational approach to banking in Sri Lanka. As we move ever closer to 2020, HNB has released a flurry of new digitally enabled products and services, while refining back-end processes to deliver unmatched customer service across all channels.

“HNB continues to offer our customers the highest limits on transactions, withdrawals and daily transfer limits while maintaining the largest Customer Deposit Machine network and offering the highest number of digital delivery channel options in Sri Lanka. This emphasis on technology gives our valued customers a wide range of choice, allowing them to bank in the way that they prefer,” HNB Head of Digital Banking, Mangala Wickramasinghe said.

Crucially, HNB’s efforts to promote digital banking have not merely been confined to Sri Lanka’s urban centres. Instead, Wickramasinghe explained how concerted efforts have been diverted towards promoting digital awareness among Sri Lanka’s rural community through the deployment of multilingual campaigns that are ultimately aimed at improving access to finance across channels.

HNB was recognised by the prestigious Banker Magazine as one of the Top 1000 banks in the world and is also the highest ranked local bank in this listing. Over the recent past, HNB has also been adjudged Best Retail Bank 2018 by The Asian Banker Magazine in addition to being declared Best SME Bank, Best Digital Bank and the Best Cash Management Bank in Sri Lanka at the Asiamoney Awards 2018. Over the past week HNB was also named by Euromoney as the Best Corporate Cash Management Bank in Sri Lanka for 2018, in addition to being awarded Best Retail Bank and Best Micro Finance Bank at the International Finance Awards 2018 and being ranked among the Most Admired Companies in Sri Lanka by the International Chamber of Commerce and Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA).

HNB also stands as the highest ranked bank in Sri Lanka by LMD and Business Today magazines. HNB became the first Sri Lankan bank to obtain an international credit rating and was assigned a foreign currency issuer rating of B1 on par with the sovereign rating by Moody’s Investors Service, while it has a national long term rating of AA- (lka) by Fitch Ratings (Lanka) Ltd.

Photo caption: (From left) Sanjay Wijemanne, Deputy General Manager - Retail Banking, Subram Parameshwaran, Senior Manager- IT Operations, Daphne Gamage, Senior Manager – Inward Remittances, Chakshika Amarawradhana. Manager – Digital Banking, Rajeev Rajaratnam, Senior Manager –Systems Implementation and Asanga Uduwela, Deputy General Manager – Operations of HNB with the awards