Seylan Bank wins IT award for innovation

Seylan Bank won the "Best Branch Automation and networking Project" Award 2007, at the Asian Bankers Summit 2008 in Hanoi, Vietnam, for its pioneering "Palm Top Banking" project.

The award signifies the outcome of leveraging cutting edge technology coupled with human talent to satisfy the most discerning customer's convenience in mind.

Seylan Bank introduced Palm Top Banking for the first time in Sri Lanka and the Asian Region, enabling customers to conduct banking transactions at home, office or anywhere else they may be.

This concept revolutionised the manner in which banking was done in this country, and was the result of the vision of its Founder Chairman/Managing Director Dr. Lalith Kotelawala to take banking to the people.

Palm Top Banking is operating through a team of mobile Business Development Officers (BDOs) who call over wherever the customer wishes and attend to his/her banking requirements online.

This pioneering system was developed by the NCS group, a leading IT and communication engineering service provider in the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions.

It enables the BDOs to carry out secure banking transactions on a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). Each BDO equipped with a PDA and a small portable printing device can perform functions such as cash and cheque deposits, cash withdrawals, Ceylinco Fast Cash remittance disbursement, loan application and account opening.

If a customer wishes to apply for a loan, the BDO submits the loan application electronically and the system performs the customer credit checking.

Once creditworthiness is ascertained, the BDO is able to provide an in-principle approval to the customer on the spot.