Lack of focus and direction in ICT sector

Hiran H. Senewiratne

The growth in Sri Lanka’s Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector is not clear and satisfactory due to the lack of focus and direction unlike in India, General Manager/ Chief Executive Officer, LankaClear (Pvt) Limited Sunimal Weerasooriya said.

He said Sri Lanka is lagging behind in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry due to the lack of proper focus and direction from the authorities, which has a lot of potential for our country to position it as a regional hub.

He said where India is concerned political back up is very much into the ICT sector. This has resulted in it dominating the world in the sector.

Most of the States in India have taken a lot of interest and initiative to developing the IT industry like the Central Government of India, Weerasooriya said.

At State level, India has taken a lot of interest in the IT sector. Therefore, Sri Lanka also should learn from India to develop the IT sector because we have all the knowledge and capabilities to develop the BPO sector in the region.”

He said if the Government and the relevant authorities do not take any interest to take the industry forward , most of our educated IT graduates will leave the country due to the absence of proper employment opportunities in the country.

Weerasooriya said the country’s human capital is not properly utilised and at end of the day, the country will lose productive and professional people in the long term perspective.

Excerpts of the interview:

Q: LankaClear being Sri Lanka’s premier cheque clearing house, do you see any growth in the clearing of cheques during the last few years?

We are a service provider which is an outsourcing unit of the Central Bank which was formed in 2006. Today the company’s 51 per cent of stakes are held by the Central Bank and the balance by all government and private commercial banks in the country, which is now running as a 100 per cent independent private entity.

Therefore, we work with all commercial banks in the country. Apart from the cheque clearing function, we operate inter bank payment system like electronic off line fund transactions. I see during the last three years electronic transactions have gone by an average of 30 per cent, which shows a tendency growth where the customers are now moving into electronic fund transfers like credit cards, debit cards and visa viz other conventional payment systems.

Q: What are the new trends in Sri Lanka’s electronic payment systems?

Sri Lanka is no exception to these trends, where we see that the market is getting used to electronic fund transfer mechanisms. Our role as the national clearing house to introduce new technology to assist all commercial banks in the country. With new technology we adopt T plus I system where we get credit the very next day.

Q: What is the significance of your function as the country’s premier cheque clearing house?

With the new technology we could go to any geographical location. Earlier to transfer a cheque it has to travel physically. With the new technology a cheque does not travel but image and data travel through a wire which is known as a Virtual Private Network. We want to connect to the entire country.

Today we work with 22 commercial banks and clear more than 200,000 cheques a day. We are not in the business and we are the service provider through the Government to provide the maximum efficiency and better service to customers through commercial banks.

We are leading in the SAARC and the Asia Pacific regions on the technology. Singapore is the first country to introduce electronic cheque and money transaction system on a nationwide basis. We were the second in the region to introduce this type of system in 2006.The beauty is that we are using local technology and only hardware items are being imported.

Q: What are the future plans of the company?

Our purpose is to facilitate new trends into the payment system. Our most recent project is the common payment switch where all commercial banks are linked through the switch. The end results are banks can do electronically transfers on line on a real time basis.

Under this system, it would also facilitate inward remittances, bill payments, and transfer of employee’s salaries. For this project we are going to invest Rs 150 million.

Q: With this development in the electronic technology could we think of a paperless regime in the country?

Yes! We could think of a paperless regime with the advancement of the electronic technology transfer mechanisms. This would increase the efficiency and effectiveness with less use of resources. When we are moving to the electronic payment system, we are using internationally accepted security standards to prevent hacking and getting to the data system.

Q: How would do you see the global financial crisis and its impact on the local financial sector?

The financial sector in Sri Lanka is quite immune as our Central Bank has taken a lot of measures and Sri Lanka is not much exposed to it due to that. We have not seen a drop in cheque transactions volumewise or valuewise.

But I see that the export consumption pattern has completely changed and certain goods like tea and apparel sectors have rather impacted due to the financial crisis. We see there are a lot of opportunities with the global financial crisis to enter into untouched and non traditional sectors.

Q: Do you think the current global financial crisis creates an opportunity for Sri Lanka?

Yes! We have to spot opportunities and move in a prudent manner without sticking to traditional exports like tea, rubber, apparel and other sectors. Sri Lanka has a strong agriculture and we have not exploited its opportunities to the maximum.

As we know the world food crisis is not solved but have not come into prominence due to the on going financial crisis.

Sri Lanka’s agriculture sector has a future and we have to focus more to develop it to be competitive like improving the use of land, increase productivity and help the farmers to find markets to enter the international trade

Q: As a decision maker of leading entity in the country, if you were to advice top national level decision maker what is your advice?

I first advice to resolve the ethnic crisis. But I believe the government cannot solve every problem in the country as they have to play a catalyst role by drafting long term steady policies and regulations for the private sector to run with best practices.

Q: What is your philosophy in life?

I am Buddhist and also practice Buddhism, which is more of a philosophy. I am a person who doesn’t believe in luck. I work hard and work smart with a focused mind, which is one of the secrets behind my success.

Q: What is your retirement plan?

I don’t believe in retirement. I believe people should work till death. Most people retire and become sick. I don’t need to retire. I will work until I am physically fit.

Profile

Name - Sunimal Weerasooriya
School attended - Kingswood College Kandy
Educational Qualification -
Academic - Bachelor of Science in Engineering
University of Peradeniya.
Master of Business Administration -
PIM, University of Sri Jayewardenepura.
Masters in Management of Technology -
Asia Institute of Technology (AIT).
Professional -
Fellow Member of the Chartered Management Institute of UK.
Civil status -
Married, has two daughters
Occupation -
General Manager/ CEO LankaClear (Pvt) Ltd.