(L – R): Chakshika Amarawardhana, Senior Manager – Digital Banking, HNB; Dr. Kenneth De Zilwa, Chairman, LankaPay; Nihal Fonseka, Member of the Monetary Board of CBSL; Sanjay Wijemanne, Deputy General Manager, Retail and SME Banking, HNB; Chammika Weerasinghe, Assistant General Manager, Digital Business, HNB; and Channa De Silva, General Manager/CEO – LankaPay.
HNB was recognized among the top Private and State financial institutions at LankaPay Technnovation Awards 2023. The bank won the Bank of the Year for Excellence in Customer Convenience in Category A, in recognition of key initiatives launched to ensure convenience to customers across its digital platforms, where Category A consisted of large state and private banks. They were adjudged to be the best bank in providing customer convenience through digital products and the facilitation of an increased number of digital transactions.
Sanjay Wijemanne, DGM– Retail and SME Banking, HNB said, “We are thrilled to be recognized at the Technnovation Awards for the second consecutive year. We also need to recognize the efforts of all the winners and nominees, who have continued to build upon the efforts towards making Sri Lanka a digitally empowered nation. Within this pool of businesses, we are honored that our efforts towards supporting innovative digital payment solutions was acknowledged.”
The bank redefined customer experience in digital banking by accurately mapping out critical points, following the complete overhaul and restructuring and digitalization of its front, middle and back-end functions in 2013. The move pushed the organizational culture into a digital-first mindset.
The bank established Digital Centers of Excellence to centralize administrative and back-office functions, which led to a significant portion of its operations being automated.
“We take a holistic view towards our customer journeys with regard to products and services and we are aggressive in establishing the necessary technological infrastructure to adopt new capabilities across the organisation. The only rule is that it must effectively serve the needs of our customers. By combining automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotic process automation, and other emerging technologies, banks can offer digital financial assistance to facilitate seamless and frictionless transactions. For our customers the result will be greater convenience, value, and security,” said HNB AGM – Digital Business, Chammika Weerasinghe.
The win at the Technnovation awards builds upon bank’s recent industry recognitions, which includes the Gold Award for Best Search Engine Optimisation/Search Engine Marketing and the Silver for the Best Use of Experiential Digital Marketing at the SLIM DIGIs 2.2 Awards; along with the recognition of HNB FIT, Asia’s first fitness related app launched by Sri Lanka’s most digitally-savvy bank HNB being crowned as the ‘Best IoT initiative’ at the Asian Digital Finance Forum and Awards.
