DFCC stimulus package to help revive economy | Sunday Observer

DFCC stimulus package to help revive economy

2 August, 2020
DFCC Bank CEO Lakshman Silva
DFCC Bank CEO Lakshman Silva

Moving with the Central Bank’s initiative to help kick-start businesses and assist in the country’s economic revival, DFCC has offered a stimulus package to the value of over Rs. 90 billion, said DFCC Bank CEO Lakshman Silva. 

The economy is still recovering from twin tragedies; the Easter Sunday attacks and the Covid pandemic. the DFCC Bank provided a Rs. 90 billion loan stimulus package to help in the post Covid revival of the economy. 

The loans are offered on a single digit interest rate. 

DFCC Bank recently launched many initiatives to cushion the negative impact of the Covid pandemic to the tourism and SME and other related sectors. 

 The ‘DFCC Sahanaya’ concessionary loan scheme amounting to Rs 2 billion was introduced to provide relief to export-related businesses. “We hope that the aforementioned concessions would be of benefit to them during this difficult period for the whole country,” he said. 

The DFCC Bank is a full-service commercial bank that offers a gamut of commercial and development banking services.

The Bank was ranked among Business Today’s Top 30 Corporates in Sri Lanka and was also positioned among Brand Finance’s Top 100 Most Valuable Brands, 2020.  DFCC Bank is rated A+ (lka) by Fitch Ratings Lanka Limited.

He said he hopes that the recipients of these loans will make maximum use of this package to kick start their businesses and come out stronger than they were before.

“We also hope they will start paying back on time not ‘ruining’ the bank’s ‘sound’ NPL ratio. “Banks cannot survive maintaining an increasing portfolio or Non Performing Loans and hence we expect some sectors to ‘pay back’.” 

He said that most of the sectors would recover and signs of this are already emerging. “However I don’t see a silver lining in the horizons yet for the tourism sector mainly due to ‘lock downs’ of other countries and also temporary closure of the airport.” 

Airing his views on the local banking sector, he said that he feels the sector has faced similar tragedies earlier and is positioned to emerge stronger on the long run. 

He said that the Bank has rightly been investing in digitalisation for some time and this has proved to be a step taken in the right direction.

During the lockdown, many customers came online since we had a readymade platform built for them. 

“We will invest more in the drive towards digitalisation since we see opportunities in cost reductions and increasing customer engagement. “DFCC’s vision for 2025 is to become the most customer-centric and digitally enabled bank in the country.”  “Taking new health and security precautions spelled out by health and security authorities we took additional measures to safeguard our staff that went out of their way in executing their duties despite the curfew and lockdown to ensure a continuous service for customers. 

“Some prudent investments made earlier on digital transformation and ATM/CDM expansion and our mobile units also ensured an uninterrupted service to our customers who were also facing numerous challenges during this time,” he said.

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