Category: Banking and Finance

Mar 25, 2010 (LBO) – Commercial Bank has been declared Sri Lanka’s best bank in 2010 for the 12th year running by Global Finance magazine, the bank said in a statement. The US-based financial publication’s latest listing of the ˜Best Emerging Markets in Asia’ is to published in its May issue. The report covers the […]

Mar 25, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lankan government controlled funds bought chunks of Hatton Nation Bank on the Colombo bourse Thursday increasing their stake in the private listed bank to 25 percent of its voting rights, brokers said. “Now the government owns 25 percent of HNB,” the spokesman from Capital Trust Securities said. Sri Lanka […]

Mar 24, 2010 (LBO) – An initial public offer of shares by Sri Lanka’s Vallibel Finance is seen as being priced to a discount to market given its immediate earnings record, Capital Alliance, the issue’s placement agent, said. Vallibel Finance seeks to raise 114.4 million rupees by selling 5.2 million shares at 22 rupees each. […]

Mar 22, 2010 (LBO) – Banks can reduce credit risks by segmenting present and future customers into different credit risk pools using information technology, a senior official from International Business Machine (IBM) Corporation said. “We believe that there are three imperatives that are going to force financial institutions to think and act in fundamentally new […]

Mar 21, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state-sector retirement funds plan to make “more aggressive” investments in the share market and less in Treasury bills and bonds, Central Bank Governor Nivard Cabraal has been quoted as saying. The funds have also been giving negative real rates of return for most years as interest rates on […]

Mar 20, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Vallibel Finance will use cash raised from an initial public offering (IPO) to reduce financing costs and expand leasing and hire purchase businesses and its branch network, a senior official said. “We were planning to come to the market in another two to three years but we came […]

Mar 19, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Central Bank has launched a credit refinance scheme to help small and medium enterprises which are in difficulty to recover, senior officials said. The 100 percent refinance scheme through banks will give loans at eight percent up to a maximum of 20million rupees to help existing firms recover, […]

Mar 15, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lankan finance companies should reach out to rural areas which historically have been short of credit, governor of the Central Bank, Nivard Cabraal, said. Rural savers are also known to make deposits at unregulated finance companies that offer high interest rates but risk making heavy losses if the firms […]

Mar 15, 2010 (LBO) – Payment of an extra 20 percent ‘bonus interest’ to Sri Lankan senior citizens on rupee deposits maintained at licensed commercial banks will start from Thursday, March 18, the Central Bank said. The government will pay the extra interest to citizens over 60 years of age subject to a limit of […]

Mar 14, 2010 (LBO) – Commercial Credit Ltd, a registered finance company based in Sri Lanka’s central hill town of Kandy opened an office in the capital Colombo, which the firm says is a step in a expansion drive. The company, founded 28 years ago, has network of five branches and 12 collection centres unveiled […]

Mar 10, 2010 (LBO) – Seylan Bank group has slashed its wage bill 30.7 percent to 2.5 billion rupees and is pushing to recover some its 29 percent bad loans as it is re-structured, senior officials in its state-backed management said. “We cut some unnecessary costs, stopped overtime, cut fuel allowances and increased staff retirement […]

Mar 09, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Seylan Bank in which state ownership increased to 28 percent following a 1.1 billion rupee capital injection has retained its ‘BBB+(lka)’ with a ‘stable’ outlook, Fitch Ratings said. The bank was able to reverse the deposit run, and reported a net deposit inflow of over 5 billion rupees […]