LankaClear achieves Rs. 422m net revenue

Lanka Clear achieved a net revenue of Rs. 422 mn for the 2008/09 financial year and recorded an after tax profit of Rs. 111 Mn. Despite increasing operational costs, the Company was able to achieve a 26 percent net profit margin and a debt: equity ratio of 16:84 as at March 31, 2009.

The Company has also maintained a healthy current ratio of 5.4, and recorded an impressive return on an equity ratio of 21.07 per cent based on stated capital for the 2008/2009 financial year, Chairman Lanka Clear A. Sarath de Silva said.

The principal activity of the Company which is the Rupee Cheque Clearing recorded a marginal decrease in volume. However, there was a marginal increase in value during the year under the review, reflecting a 5.32 percent decrease in volume and a 5.13 per cent increase in value. Sri Lanka draft clearing reflected a decrease of 29.28 percent compared with the previous year.

The US$ clearing items also demonstrated a decrease of 14.61 percent with an increase of 9.28 percent valuewise. The Sri Lanka Interbank Payment System continued its positive trend this year, as well as by registering increases in both volume and value by 28.35 percent and 29.62 percent respectively, he said.

The Chief Executive Officer will give a detailed account of the Company's operational performance in his review.

Irrespective of their demographics customers are seeking feasible ways to access financial services, and this is particularly evident in the area of payments. The cost of a transaction is an additional concern, as ICT, infrastructure and business development penetrates the villages.

With an end to the three decades of war, and the vision of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka to make the country a regional financial hub, the company anticipates a boom in business.

This together with the ICT penetration of villages will raise the need for real-time realization of payments on a 24x7 basis, at a low transaction cost within a high secure system. This need is already being addressed by several of the mobile payment systems and mobile bill payments via Point-Of-Sales systems.