LankaClear improves ‘Settlement Clearing’ :
Extends cheque deposit deadlines
Charumini DE SILVA
LankaClear, the National Clearing House of Sri Lanka has made
arrangements for banks to extend their cheque deposit cut-off times from
April to make cheque payments more convenient in the country.
|
Harsha
Wanigatunga |
As a result of upgrading IT infrastructure, LankaClear is now capable
of extending the cheque submission time to 7:00 p.m. thus facilitating
the banks to extend their cheque deposit cut-off times. This will be
effective from April 1, LankaClear (Pvt) Limited Operations Head, Harsha
Wanigatunga told Daily News Business.
The company has improved its Settlement Clearing Cycle where cheque
return data is provided to the Banks by 1:30 p.m. enabling them to
release funds to their customers within the Banking hours on T+1.
This efficiency improvement was made possible by the data
transmission for the Settlement Clearing Cycle being online from Monday
and with digital signatures for greater security. These improvements
have benefited to the end customer as the Disaster Recovery (DR)
capabilities have been greatly improved creating a more reliable cheque
clearing system, he said.
The launch of the Enhanced SLIPS (Sri Lanka Interbank Payment System)
last year was a great success. It is the first paperless, online and
highly secured retail clearing system that connects all Commercial Banks
via the LankaClear Vitual Private Network (VPN) with end-to-end digital
signing.
He said that the enhanced SLIPS was primarily implemented to cater
for higher volumes that are expected due to rapid economic growth and to
facilitate same day clearing (T+0) thus enabling customers to get good
value for fund transfers on the same day.
There has been a commendable growth in SLIPS transaction volumes and
around 18 percent annual growth was recorded last year. With the
introduction of same day clearing (T+0), it has been observed that the
third party customer transfer volumes have increased substantially.
LankaSign, the first financial sector Certificate Service Provider
(CSP) operated and managed by LankaClear launched two new products
Email/Document Signing Certificates and SSL Server Certificates in
February. The company expects that with the introduction of these new
products greater security for financial transaction can be achieved and
move towards a Greener environment.
“These improvements to the clearing systems will enhance the capacity
of payments industry in Sri Lanka to serve all sectors of the economy to
support the higher growth path of post-war Sri Lanka,” Wanigatunga said.
LankaClear, has continuously enhanced the Cheque Clearing System
(Cheque Image and Truncation System (CITS) to meet the market growth and
to create greater efficiency to serve the public in a better manner.
|