NCS takes technology to Sri Lankan jungles

Singapore’s IT solutions provider introduces mobile teller services for Seylan Bank, enabling customers to conduct basic transactions

Armed with a personal digital assistant, mini printer and cash, Seylan Bank’s motorcycle-bound business development officers (BDOs) are bringing banking services to the heart of the Sri Lankan jungle. BDOs can open accounts, take deposits of up to Sri Lankan Rupees (SLRs)250,000 ($2,265), dispense cash of up to SLRs5,000 and provide services such as insurance and consumer finance.

In the past, BDOs could conduct most of the same activities in remote areas, although it would require time-consuming trips back and forth between the branch and the customers.

The bank’s $3.5 million “palm top banking” programme from Singapore’s NCS is part of a rapid shift to mobile banking services on the island. Seylan Bank already had SMS banking since 2004 and offers 11 services via mobile phone, including balance inquiry, funds transfer between accounts and utility bill payments.

Inspired by Bill Gates’ “banks are dinosaurs” accusation, Seylan Bank’s chairman Dr Deshamanya Lalith Kotelawala, the head of Ceylinco Consolidated that owns Seylan Bank, wanted to find a way to empower bankers with technology before they lost touch with their clients.

The 20 people NCS assigned to the 10-month project were involved in developing the IT infrastructure, as well as the user interface, which included designing the form factor of the small screen, which is based on Microsoft’s .net platform. The project used some existing NCS platform components to hasten the development cycle.

Eventually the company will be involved in the third stage of the project, which will be to put the capabilities into a mobile phone.

“Our input was the technology and the user interface. It is quite unlike the PC or the laptop where the form factor is huge, the screen available to do the transactions,” says Chong Yoke Sin, NCS’s CEO. “And the key thing is that we have to ensure the security and the encryption of all the transactions.” NCS claims that Seylan’s palm banking system is the first of its kind in Sri Lanka.

Seylan’s Kotelawala is also using the technology to circumvent a combative regulator who will not approve new branches or ATMs. “I can’t help it if the regulatory people have myopic vision,” he says.

Considered a maverick, partly due its chairman’s strong sense of corporate social responsibility, Seylan Bank has seen high NPLs due to a willingness to work with delinquent borrowers on restructuring bad loans rather than foreclosing. But the resulting NPLs, 10.9 percent in the first half of 2007, are one reason why the bank hasn’t received approvals for new branches. So it is using “palm top banking” to find a way around the barrier.

The “palm top banking” project will also complement the remittance system the bank put in place with NCS in late 2006 for overseas Sri Lankan workers. “This is the second project that we’ve done with Ceylinco. The first one was a full-fledged remittance system, Fast Cash, done in only three months as a cash-to-cash and cash-to-account systems,” says Chong.

The new project means that after the remittance system has delivered money to the unbanked, the bank now has a way to provide value-added services such as savings, mortgages, or business loans.

Distribution is a natural challenge for all of Sri Lanka’s banks, but not everyone is hopping on motorbikes to address the issue. Many other banks currently rely on agreements with other banks to offer counter services, but the arrangement can be unreliable. - Peter Hoflich

Source: The Asian Banker