Sampath Bank facilitates online visa
Sanjeevi Jayasuriya
Sampath Bank will facilitate the payment gateway to support business
integration of the online visa application process came to effect from
1st January. This will be mandatory for all visitors except for visitors
from few countries such as the Maldives and Singapore. “We are providing
facilities as an advanced platform to apply visa online.
The system will capture payment process and required information to
enable effective operation of the system,” Sampath Bank Enterprise IT
Solutions Head Mangala P. Wickramasinghe told Daily News Business.
The online system will provide visa approval within 24 hours under
normal circumstances.
A reference number is given to the traveller to ascertain the stage
of the approval process. A confirmation is given once the visa is issued
and the traveller can get the visa stamped at this point, he said.
However, there will also be a counter at the Bandaranaike
International Airport to facilitate who do not apply online with an
additional fee. This move is to discourage over the counter visa
application and encourage to apply online.
Sampath Bank’s role in this system is in facilitating payment
integration of the system for customer information and interface.
There will be daily settlement of account as dollar collection and
revenue is expected to be substantial. The online visa application
system is expected to generate US $ 400,000 to 600,000 monthly.
The entire process is well secured and we will not store any
information other than confirmed transactions by the Immigration and
Emigration Department.
We will also not capture full information on card transactions in any
temporary data bases, he said. The entire business system is a well
secured and for availability purposes multi sites are in operational to
make it intact.
Sampath Bank has taken a lead role to facilitate e-SriLanka
initiative by the Information Communication Technology Agency of Sri
Lanka, where they provide a collaboration and service delivery platform,
‘Lanka gate’ to government departments.
Sampath Bank was also instrumental in introducing on-line renewal of
motor vehicle revenue licences few years back.
We were selected among many service providers of on-line payment
solutions due to superior technical and business capabilities. We have
an integrated system with the Immigration and Emigration Department and
banking system for seamless transaction processing and reconciliation.
The B2B integration will facilitate quality and uninterrupted
services to visitors to the country.
There will also be a help desk operative 24/7 to answer any queries
to support this private public initiative, Wickramasinghe said. |