ICICI, Sampath Bank initiate Money2SriLanka

ICICI Bank Limited, India's largest private sector bank launched of Money2SriLanka (M2SL), an online cross-border money transfer facility in partnership with Sampath Bank PLC.

From left, Anoja Karunaratne (Chief Risk and Compliance Officer), Tharaka Ranwala (Deputy General Manager-Marketing and Business Development), Aravinda Perera (Deputy Managing Director), Harris Premaratne (Managing Director) from Sampath Bank with Vijay Chandok (Group Executive - Head International Banking), Sandeep Batra (Senior General Manager, Group Compliance Officer and Company Secretary), Prem Kumar Thampi (Deputy General Manager and Country Head, Sri Lanka) from ICICI Bank.

ICICI Bank has a presence in Sri Lanka through its branch office in Colombo. M2SL is a web-based online remittance platform which facilitates the sending of remittances from various geographies to beneficiaries in Sri Lanka in a convenient, speedy and economical manner.

The service will be piloted in Canada and the United Kingdom and expanded to Australia, USA, South East Asia and the Euro Zone in the second phase.

An ICICI Bank spokesperson said, "ICICI Bank remains committed to extend its expertise in the cross border payments business and the online tracking service for money transfers is the first step towards creating a remittance platform for Sri Lanka."

The remittance received through M2SL is available for account holders of ICICI Bank Sri Lanka and Sampath Bank instantly on the day of receipt of funds in Sri Lanka, while the remittances received on behalf of account holders of other banks in Sri Lanka will be disbursed via the Sri Lanka Interbank Payment system (SLIPS) with the same day value, subject to cut off timings for processing of payments.

An important feature of the facility is the availability of an online tracking system to trace the status of a transaction from the point of initiation up to the point of payment to the beneficiary.