HNB joins with e-commerce WEBXPAY to enhance SMEs and micro businesses
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Picture shows Jude Fernando, Deputy General Manager - SME exchanging the MOU with Omar Sahib- Co- Founder & CEO Web-X-pay. From left Niluka Amarasinghe Senior Manager SME Business development of HNB, Roshantha Jayatunge, Head of Cards of HNB and Nauchelli Fernando, Business Development Manager Web-X-pay.
HNB PLC has announced a breakthrough partnership with e-commerce Software as a Service (SaaS) provider, WEBXPAY, to launch an integrated e-commerce platform aimed at helping micro, small and medium businesses (MSMEs) Sri Lanka to adapt to e-commerce.
In a media release, HNB said it would be launching a island-wide programme across all of its 252 customer centres to enable a cashless payments revolution in Sri Lanka.
WEBXPAY, a start-up which has been in business for about 10 months, has already onboard over 450 merchants on its platform. These merchants are transacting and reaching out to not only a larger share of the Sri Lankan market, but also generating sales out of far out markets like the US.
HNB Managing Director/CEO, Jonathan Alles said: “MSMEs are the backbone of the Sri Lankan economy, contributing a significant proportion of for a large slice of the country’s GDP, despite lagging behind the larger businesses due to limited access to financial services and technology based on cost factors and complexity. This programme will provide MSMEs in Sri Lanka a cost effective and easy to use all-in-one solution to compete with their larger counterparts on equal footing”.
Referring to Sri Lanka’s tourism sector, Mr. Alles said while Sri Lanka has over 7,700 listed properties, more than 90 per cent of these properties lacked an efficient platform to transact online; another area which he believes HNB’s partnership with WEBXPAY will yield valuable benefits from SMEs.
Nazeem Mohamed, Founder/Director of WEBXPAY said; “After being in the payments industry for over two decades, together with my co-founders Omar Sahib and Sajith Chanuka, we identified a big void in the marketplace where MSMEs lacked access to a cost-effective solution to compete globally on an equal footing. To fill this void, we developed our suite of cost effective products, and our current portfolio of 450 merchants in a period of 10 months (compared to.1,000 businesses transacting through e-commerce over a 13-year period) is testament to our thesis. Our mission is to be the ‘Face of Change in Sri Lanka’ and with support from HNB we are targeting to increase our merchant portfolio to 20,000 in five years. We are privileged to be partnering with HNB in their mission to empower and enable MSMEs in Sri Lanka through e-commerce.”