Banking
DFCC’s banking website wins award
DFCC’s newly re-launched website www.dfcc.lk was awarded a Bronze in the Corporate Website category of the Best Sri Lankan Website Competition organized by the LK Domain Registry- an independent non-profit organization which registers Sri Lankan domains.
Building on its success, last week the Bank launched two separate websites for Sinhala and Tamil languages based on Unicode technology which is seen as the future in multilingual websites. It is the first banking website in Sri Lanka to use this technology. The Bank’s Vice President for Corporate Communications Rosheeni Wijesekera expressed her views to Sunday Times Advertising Desk on winning the award and meeting preferences of customers who are traversing the cyber world.
What was your objective in re-launching the Bank’s website earlier this year?
A: We deliver integrated banking solutions through a network of physical locations island wide. In the same way we needed to consolidate and integrate our offerings for businesses and individuals into one cyber location. With a view to delivering seamless banking services through a convenient, easy to navigate portal, DFCC hopes to meet the financial information needs of the cyber savvy generation.
What is your view about winning the award?
A: Our new website is only three months old. Our attempt was to build a site that was refreshing to visit and easy to navigate. We’ve achieved that. I believe this is why an eminent panel of judges gave it a Bronze. It met most of the criteria, but currently we are looking to make more improvements to enhance the user experience on the site. Our target is to make this website a Gold standard.
Launching the DFCC Sinhala website. Regional Manager, (North Western) Prasanna Premarathne (left) and Kurunegala branch Manager S. Godakande
We have a lot of plans to make it interesting, interactive and alluring to people. Bank websites in general are not interesting spaces to visit even though money plays such an essential role in our lives. Managing money and getting the most for it is an art that some have mastered well whilst others can benefit by learning early in life. That is probably where our website will make a difference in the days ahead.
You just launched Sinhala and Tamil versions. How user- friendly are these websites?
A: Most of the Sri Lankan websites are in English due to English being the primary language of the information age. Nevertheless an overwhelming majority of Sri Lankans use Sinhala and Tamil as their primary mode of communication.
The focus of many forums has been about building an inclusive society where everyone has the right to enjoy the fruits of technology. Language should not be a barrier to integrate people into a more informed, cyber savvy society.
The technology that is available now is very conducive to building multilingual websites. Our technology partner Pyxle Private Limited, has made sure that the Sinhala and Tamil versions are user-friendly. The same simplicity and ease of navigation of the English website is present in the new versions as well. The information available in the Sinhala and Tamil websites are just as comprehensive as the English website.
DFCC is the first Bank to use Unicode for a trilingual site. What are its implications?
A: The majority of Sri Lankan banking sites do not offer Sinhala and Tamil versions. DFCC Bank, as a pioneer in the financial services sector realised that it had a responsibility to set a precedent with its corporate communication initiatives.
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world’s writing systems.Here in Sri Lanka the Information Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) spearheaded the development of Sinhala and Tamil Unicode standards that enabled these languages to be easily written and accurately depicted. With the spread of social media and blogging the use and popularity of Unicode has grown in the country.
There is a large population of Sri Lankan internet users who regularly follow Sinhala and Tamil websites and are more comfortable with navigating the internet in their preferred language.
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