Banking services for displaced

Lakshmi DE SILVA

Banking services for more than 200,000 account holders in IDP welfare villages were expanded with the new fully fledged Bank of Ceylon branch opened at the Arunachalam welfare village Vavuniya this week.

The newly opened BoC branch has all the facilities like any other branch but special facilities like keeping the valuables and deeds in safe custody free of charge was a unique feature and there were lot of people waiting to open new accounts with us, BOC Deputy General Manager C. Samarasingha told Daily News yesterday.

Already there are 200,000 account holders, 6,850 public servants and 1,780 school teachers among them who deal with us and we provide our services to them with 7 mobile units since they concentrated on the IDP camps. But with the new branch at Arunachalam Welfare Village the people have the ability to open new accounts and ask their parents, relatives or custodians to remit money to them Samarasingha said.

Bank of Ceylon also had organized tuition classes for GCE O/L, A/L and year five scholarship for the student population numbering 30,000 languishing in the welfare camps as a corporate social responsibility program the DGM said.

Resettlement and Disaster Relief Services Minister Rishard Bathiutheen, Disaster Relief Minister Amir Ali, National Integration and Reconciliation Minister Vinayagamoorthi Muralitheran, Bank of Ceylon Chairman Dr. Gamini Wickramasinhe and President's Coordinating officer Lalath Abeygunawardena were also present at the opening of the new bank at Arunachalam Welfare Village.