Banking system to be made customer-friendly service- Deputy Minister of Finance

A.W. Gunawardhana, Matara Central correspondent

MATARA: To make banking, a customer - friendly service, new regulations will be framed in due course, said the Deputy Minister of Finance Ranjith Siyambalapitiya.

He was addressing the occasion of converting the business at Weligama branch of the Bank of Ceylon

The 200th branch in the cluster of branches functioning islandwide.

The Deputy Minister said of the twenty five state-owned banks, Bank of Ceylon leads in swelling the economy of the country with 301 branches, doing its best to serve their customers and to attract other customers. He said rules and regulations presently in force at the Central Bank of Sri Lanka are harsh and not catering to the needs of the general public or its customers.

Small and medium grade industrialists should be provided loans to expand their industries.

He said it should not be made obligatory to possess a competent certificate in relation to the respective industry, when an application is made for a loan of Rs. 10,000 by a small or medium scale industrialist. If this requirement is not done away with, customers will not patronise state- owned banks.

Chairman, Bank of Ceylon, Udaya Sri Kariyawasam said ours is called the Gathiya Maha Pahan Tamba because we can proudly speak of 301 branches within the island and two in foreign lands. Our strength is 60,000 customers both locally and abroad. Our assets amount to over 3000 billion of SLR. We provide job opportunities to over 8,000.

He said we are dedicated to serve the people of our motherland.

Our rates of interest on loans are low, when compared to other Banks.

It is my intention to close down the pawning division of bank.

Small scale industrialists received their loan cheques from the Deputy Minister.

Matara District M.P. Premasiri Manage and several state officers were present.