Category: Banking and Finance

Apr 18, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state has shut out competitive bids from private insurers for state entities, drawing a warning that the move would increase the cost of state enterprises and raise burden of government to the ordinary man. Sri Lanka’s insurance sector, banking, telecoms, shipping, aviation and education were stifled for decades […]

Apr 15, 2010 (LBO) – Commercial banks are opening branches in Sri Lanka’s former war zone in the north and east and are also ready to increase lending to the region, the Central Bank said. “Several licensed banks are showing keen interest to facilitate economic activities in the Northern and Eastern provinces,” it said in […]

Apr 06, 2010 (LBO) – State-run Bank of Ceylon (BoC) is offering a contributed pension plan for Sri Lankan expatriates abroad that will pay out monthly after they reach the age of 55 or 60, officials said. Wickremasinghe said BoC was Sri Lanka’s largest receiver of foreign remittances and it made sense to create a […]

Apr 05, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state-run funds are buying into private banks as foreign investors continued to exit the country, while governments elsewhere, which had ‘nationalized’ banks in a banking panic were starting to sell out. Up to March foreign investors have sold out of about 13 billion rupees worth of stocks on […]

Apr 03, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lankan glass maker, Piramal Glass Ceylon, a Sr has converted more than half of its long term rupee debt to dollar loans to cut finance costs, a senior official said. “We have recently in the last quarter converted our (rupee) loans to foreign currency loans,” Sanjay Tiwari, chief executive […]

Apr 01, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s NDB Aviva Wealth Management, a unit of listed NDB Bank and UK based Aviva Insurance says it is planning to go retail riding on easy to understand products distributed through the group. The firm manages 29 billion rupees worth of assets belonging to 80 large portfolios including the […]

Apr 01, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state-run People’s Bank group’s net profit rose 21. 8 percent to 4.1 billion rupees in 2009 from a year earlier, helped by stronger margins despite higher provisions, annual accounts showed. Group gross loans and advances rose to 334 billion rupees from 294 billion rupees a year earlier. Non […]

Mar 31, 2010 (LBO) – An initial public offering (IPO) by Sri Lanka’s Vallibel Finance to raise 114. 4 million rupees has been oversubscribed and will close Wednesday afternoon, a stock exchange filing said. The firm offered 5.2 million shares at 22 rupees each. The stock exchange filing said applications for 8,310,900 shares were received, […]

Mar 31, 2010 (LBO) – Fitch Ratings Lanka said it has assigned an ‘A-(lka)’ National Long-term rating to People’s Leasing Company Limited’s (PLC) proposed senior unsecured redeemable debentures of up to 630 million rupees. The rating agency said in a statement it has confirmed PLC’s national long-term rating at ‘A-(lka)’ with a stable outlook. The […]

Mar 30, 2010 (LBO) – Credit to Sri Lanka’s private borrowers from commercial banks was steady at 1,195. 8 billion rupees in January 2010 while loans in domestic currency rose slightly, the latest official data shows. Loans from rupee books of commercial bank rose to 1,048.7 billion rupees in January from 10,43. 8 billion a […]

Mar 26, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lankan banks will shift focus towards small and medium enterprises as well as the former north-east war zone while consolidation is needed to control costs and expand assets, a report said. “Banks to watch out for are those where management is forward thinking and empowered to mix traditional banking […]

Mar 26, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s NDB Bank has got a new chief executive, with the former being nominated as an opposition lawmaker and three directors expected to be replaced by nominees from government which now owns a big stake. It said this is “to enable certain shareholder interest to be represented on the […]