Bank to support Government’s agricultural projects:

More BoC branches in North and East soon

RAMANI KANGARAARACHCHI

The Bank of Ceylon (BoC) will set up eight branches in each province in the North and East this year under its expansion program towards the development process of the country. This will include nine ATMs in the North, seven ATMs in the East and eleven mobile units, said Chairman, Bank of Ceylon, Dr Gamini Wickramasinghe.

The Chairman told the media at a discussion at the BoC Head Office yesterday that there are 25 branches in the North at present excluding mobile units and 31 branches will be set up in the East by the end of the year because it is a large area. These branches will focus on the SME sector.

Elaborating on several micro finance schemes already in operation in the country, he said that the bank has set up grassroots level savings groups across the branch network which provides the basic platform for future Micro sector funding.

The bank has already established 5,000 such groups with a 30,000 membership.

In addition small farmer credit, livestock credit linked to insurance, micro enterprise credit, Inland Marine fisheries credit and assistance for milk production are amongst the BoC’s micro finance schemes. Plans are under way to open ten more branches in each province next year to implement these plans too.

Dr Wickramasinghe said that with the war coming to an end soon there will be a huge demand for banking needs with emerging opportunities in the North and East.

The Government also expects more foreign exchange to the country especially from the Sri Lankan diaspora to develop the devastated provinces, he said.

The Bank has also recruited 200 graduate management trainees and 500 banking assistants recently to fill the vacancies in the branch offices islandwide and some of them are Tamil-speaking graduates who will serve in the North and East. More activities in the banks are anticipated, as the BoC has been the only bank to operate in the North and East continuously for 25 years despite the conflict situation, he said.

The bank will focus on supporting the Government’s agricultural projects by way of capacity building through vocational and tertiary training programs for children in the area towards a knowledge economy, according to Dr. Wickramasinghe.