A founding member reminisces over a journey delivering heartfelt customer experiences.
Seylan Bank marked a monumental milestone as it completed 30 years in the local banking sector recently. Among the trailblazers who have been with Seylan Bank since its inception to date, Chitral De Silva’s journey with Seylan Bank, as a banker and a founding member, has played a pivotal role in establishing Seylan Bank as ‘The Bank with a Heart’.
Chitral De Silva’s journey with Seylan Bank began in 1988 as a Junior Officer. He was appointed as the Assistant Branch Manager when the Bank acquired the Indian Overseas Bank in Matara to setup its first branch outside of Colombo in 1989. In 1990, Chitral was appointed as the Branch Manager to drive the operations of the newly established branch in Nugegoda. Gaining extensive experience from being exposed to versatile business milieus, he was then given the opportunity to manage the Bank’s key branches in Kandy, Cinnamon Gardens and the ‘Millennium Branch’ in Colombo 3. He also held several key corporate managerial positions within the Development Banking and Recoveries Departments. In 2015, he took over as the Deputy General Manager- Branches to oversee operations of the entire branch network and to drive its business growth.
“It Is Amazing To Witness The Transformative Growth Of The Bank And It Gives Me Great Pride And Satisfaction To Sustainably Grow With Seylan As A Founding Member.”
Recalling his long journey with Seylan Bank, Chitral De Silva said, “It is amazing to witness the transformative growth of the bank and it gives me great pride and satisfaction to sustainably grow with Seylan as a founding member. It has not been easy, yet, we as a family have overcome both internal and external challenges by introducing strategic measures to continue our journey to fulfil our customer aspirations.” Elaborating on Seylan’s venture in developing a multi-faceted workforce, he stated, “To provide our clients with tailor-made financial solutions that meet their needs in terms of pricing, service and the value Seylan Bank consistently focuses on evolving with technology to provide the required industry training and knowledge refresher sessions for our staff. By arming our staff with proper technical know-how and expertise, we have been able to deliver exceptional customer service for the past 30 years, and set a precedent benchmark in the industry for being the bank that is living up to its promise of being ‘The Bank with a Heart’.”
30 Years in retrospect-In 2014, Seylan Bank was awarded the Best Retail and SME Bank in Sri Lanka. Seylan was also recognised as the Bank of the Year for Service Excellence by Lankapay Technovation awards. Seylan Bank won five accolades for its Banking Excellence in Retail and Digital banking at the Golden Globe Tigers Awards and at the SLIM NASCO 2018 for its Marketing Excellence.
The Future Outlook-Seylan Bank anticipates to expand its reach and establish visibility to cater to diverse economic segments and towards this, the Bank has upgraded its systems, processes and property assets to enable the customers to conduct their everyday banking needs with no hassle. “Seylan believes that Digital banking is the future.We are working towards offering the best service,” he added. “Our strategic management’s decision to drive partnerships and product innovations is steering growth in the right direction. As a result we have strived to serve our customers efficiently and productively. Our long term vision is to be the game changer in the local banking sector. To achieve this vision, we are constantly aligning our processes, training and service standards, and instilling the Bank’s core values in our workforce, to beat as a single heart to make it all possible.”
