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Cricket taught him Leadership

Fact File

Name : Aruna Ranasinghe

School : Nalanda College

Position : Manager Trade Services

Children : Son and Daughter

Becoming a manager while young, with hard work and honesty paved the way for Aruna Ranasinghe to work for a joint venture bank in the Middle East as Manager (Trade Services).

Born and bred in Colombo to a family of four boys and two girls he had his education at Nalanda College where he excelled in Cricket to captain the under 12 and under 14 teams. Being a captain taught him the qualities to be a leader and lead others to success. His father was an apothecarywhile his mother was a housewife.

Career

After completing the Advanced Level examination, he worked at Hidramani as a junior executive for one year." By the time I started working I knew the basic management therefore it was a matter of adopting to suit the working environment."

He moved to Grindlays Bank as a clerk in 1979. "I learnt the ABC of banking at Grindlays." He was promoted as a staff officer and thereafter promotions were gradual due to hard work and Honesty. Four years later, he moved to become Manager Exports, Senior Foreign Exchange dealer and was the Assistant Senior Manager Trade Finance when he left in 1997 to take up the assignment in the Middle East. He said that Grindlays Bank is the best place for a person who is keen to learn and experience the banking industry.

" Nobody is ready to offer anything to you on a platter but if you work hard everything will come to you through recognition," he noted.

He said that before he started his career his father's advice had been " there are no short cuts to success and therefore if you want to succeed work hard and be honest." He recalls this advice which still lingers in his ears and has helped him achieve his goals in life.

Future of the banking industry

Banking as an industry is a need of the people and the economy.Therefore unlike other industries banks will continue to prosper, he said confidently. Banking is also a yardstick of a country's economic prosperity.All over the world there are rumours of bank mergers and last year the European Union started discussions about immediate mergers but it has not happened in a big way and chances of it being a reality in the near future too is very remote, he added.

Trade Services

It not only involve carrying out transactions but interacting with people as well.

In Sri Lanka handling trade services is relatively easy when compared with other countries because trading partners of Sri Lanka are few compared with the rest of the world who deal with a lot of partners from around the world. Also a person engaged in trade services in another country is expected to know about embargos in UK and USA as well as trading regulations of a large amount of countries.

e-Commerce

In some of the countries of the so called developed world they are still not equipped with the infrastructure required for e-commerce. Therefore it will be some time for e-commerce to develop to expected levels, said Ranasinghe.

But the world is becoming smaller and people too have access to information due to technology. Therfore bankers should be knowledgable and acquire the expertise needed to be competitive and also provide an excellent service to the customers. Today a banker is not a mere processor but a advisor and a partner in the customers business.

Single currency

Earlier banks had to manage 12 currencies while it is only one currency now. This has eased a lot of work , risk management, pricing and travelling. This he said will benefit small economies like like Sri Lanka in a major way.

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is over banked, he opined. Sri Lankan economy is small while the infrastructure is not sufficient and therefore most banks cannot survive.

People trust the banks as guardians of their deposits, but banking has not penetrated into the rural areas due to lack of awareness as well as the attitude of bankers.

Ranasinghe said the Central Bank should be a monitor rather than a liquidator and they should intervene at the initial stages without waiting till the last minute to go in as a liquidator.

Most of all the managers should be accountable for what they do rather than blaming others as they are the people who know the ground situation. (SG)

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