LankaClear commemorates five years of CITS

LankaClear, Sri Lanka's National Clearing House celebrated the fifth anniversary of the launch of the Cheque Imaging and Truncation System - CITS recently.

Chairperson LankaClear Priyantha Liyanage, Governor of the Central Bank Ajith Nivard Cabraal and CEO of LankaClear Sunimal Weerasooriya at the CITS fifth anniversary celebrations.

CITS was introduced in May 2006, making Sri Lanka the first country in the South Asian region and the second in the world to install the highly progressive and state-of-the-art clearing system.

CITS replaced the physical movement of cheques with electronic information flowing throughout the clearing cycle enhancing the security and efficiency of the clearing process, enabling banks to achieve next day clearing and cheque realisation as well as extending customer deadlines for cheque deposits for T+1 clearing.

Owned by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and all commercial banks, LankaClear is a public-private partnership.

The company has brought economies of scale to the banking industry by combining the efficiency and dynamism of the private sector with the stability and security characterised by the public sector.

LankaClear's product portfolio includes the Sri Lanka Interbank Payment System (SLIPS) which is an online interbank electronic fund transfer enabling the same day transfer of funds in a highly secure environment.

The introduction of the US Dollar Clearing System has significantly expedited the realisation of US Dollar cheques and drafts.

The company addressed the need for security in online transactions by incorporating a Certification Authority, shouldering the responsibility to provide digital security certificates for the financial sector eliminating the prohibitive dollar cost to banks of obtaining certification from foreign providers.