Channel innovations vital for micro finance success

Addressing the members of the Finance House Association of Sri Lanka, Chairman of Epic Nayana Dehigama said that channel innovations are vital for the success of micro finance operations of banks and financial institutions.

"The legislative framework and the technology infrastructure are ready for local financial institutions to successfully engage and manage their micro finance and agency banking activities in a sustainable manner. Innovative technology solutions that have been adjudged as the best in the Asia Pacific and successfully implemented in the region are available with Epic. The offerings have been made flexible to meet the varying necessities and affordability of different financial institutions" said Dehigama.

Epic with several national level implementations in Sri Lanka and abroad shared their experiences with the top officials of the finance companies at the Annual General Meeting of the Finance House Association of Sri Lanka held last week at Galadari Hotel, Colombo. Explaining the evolution of the award winning Epic Branchless Banker which has helped local and international banks to reach clients of all social strata irrespective of geographical locations Dehigama highlighted the efficiency increase through these channel innovations and drastic drop in operational costs. The EDC POS terminal which is connected to the bank either through a public telephone network or GPRS can simulate all banking functions offering highly secure on-line real time banking at customer doorstep, he said. "You can increase your access points from ten to hundreds or even to thousands in no time thereby allowing more people to transact with your bank on-line real time as we did in Malaysia for BSN Bank. We converted the state owned biggest savings bank which had over 300 branches a network of over 4,000 access points offering almost all banking facilities through agency banking," he added.

Banks and financial institutions can connect their field officers to the core banking system through our solution said Sachith Fernandopulle, Assistant Vice President of Epic.

This can increase the credibility of the bank immensely as field collections are immediately updated in the main system and receipts are issued to the clients then and there together with passbook updates. Efficiency of the field operations too will go up as the staff members can devote more time in the field as there is no necessity to spend time in back office updates in completing days work, he added. Epic Branchless Bankers comes with state of the art security features such as bio-metric verifications and hence this is completely foolproof as certified by international agencies and authorities, he said.