Commercial Bank receives licence from Central Bank of Myanmar
View(s):The Commercial Bank has become the first Sri Lankan bank to be granted a licence by the Central Bank of Myanmar to operate a Representative
Picture shows Commercial Bank’s AGM Plan Implementation Richard Rodrigo (centre) receiving the licence from May Toe Win, Director Financial Institutions Regulation & Anti-Money Laundering Department of the Central Bank of Myanmar.
Office in the South East Asian republic of more than 50 million people.
“We believe that there is further potential to increase bi-Iateral trade between Myanmar and Sri Lanka, and that there is a likelihood of some of Sri Lanka’s leading apparel exporters and other industries setting up operations in Myanmar,” Commercial Bank’s Chairman Dharma Dheerasinghe said in a media statement on Friday. “The presence of a Representative Office of Sri Lanka’s largest private bank would facilitate this process, and be mutually beneficial to the two countries.”
Plans to open this representative office were first reported in the Business Times in November 2013.
Commercial Bank’s Managing Director and CEO Jegan Durairatnam said the bank is in the process of planning out the services it will offer initially in Myanmar, as well as the timelines for setting up its Representative Office there.
Myanmar will be Commercial Bank’s second overseas operation after Bangladesh, which the bank entered in July 2003, with the acquisition of the Bangladesh operations of Credit Agricole Indosuez (CAI), Commercial Bank’s first ever acquisition of a banking operation.