People's Bank to renovate 46 wards to mark 46th anniversary

The People's Bank which has the largest branch network of 630 branches and serves over 50% of the country's population will celebrate its 46th anniversary today. The bank will renovate 46 hospital wards in 46 districts to commemorate the 46th anniversary.

The Chief Executive Officer and General Manager of the Bank Asoka De Silva said that the bank will give more emphasis to SME and Micro enterprises, enhance non-interest income by effectively leveraging the capabilities of the Core Banking System, exploit the IT platform to introduce new delivery channels and products, greater progressiveness, succession plan through management ranks and pay more attention to Human Resource development for better performance in the future.

The bank is also planning to link all branches for online cash transactions, move towards electronic banking and mobile banking leveraging on the developments of ICT. He said that the bank will add value to existing products and services to make them more user-friendly.

The bank which is growing in popularity won the power of people's award last year. It is presented by the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing. The bank is promoting the anytime anywhere service supplied concept with the linking of branches.

The bank services large corporate accounts such as CPC, CEB as well as small farmer accounts and provides a parallel service which brings our service on par with any other bank in the country. The bank is also in the forefront in the 10-year nation building program and under this we are helping to raise the standards in 324 villages.

We are also involved in infrastructure development as well as spiritual and psychological development in addition to CSR activities such as a scholarship program to encourage education and extracurricular activities.

Entrepreneur loans are also given by the bank to start factories and industry based activities. Customers can obtain loans under the People's fast Loan scheme if people are skilled. We have launched a new comprehensive rural credit scheme for paddy farming for which the interest is 8% and the recovery rate is 98%.

In the pawning market we are the market leader. It provides working capital needs of the working class as well as the affluent. All over the country 3% of the pawned jewellery is auctioned. PB started a restructuring program after 2000 which helped to increase deposits by 20% while we also enjoy a market share of 23% in savings.

He said that the role of banking in Sri Lanka is wide and varied and among them are contribution to national development - focus on rural development, achieving high growth rates through investment in large-scale infrastructure projects and developing the knowledge economy in line with the 10-year development plan of the Government, customer convenience through technological advancements and providing credit facilities for the development of business.