ATMs are becoming expensive for banks to maintain
While banks encourage the usage of ATMs to its customers instead of depositing or withdrawing cash over the counter, times have changed today where the ATMs have become expensive for a bank to maintain and service them. Moving into online transactions is less expensive than maintaining an ATM machine, says Channa De Silva, CEO and Managing Director of LankaClear (Pvt) Ltd. Mr. Silva made this remark during a media briefing to announce the third LankaPay Technnovation Awards at the Galadari Hotel in Colombo last week. He added that more people have moved to using ATMs instead of deposits or withdrawals over the counter while also the usage of cheques has dropped by 7.7 per cent volume wise. He also mentioned that the Central Bank is looking at taking the initiative to introduce the QR code technology for transactions very soon.
Mr. Silva elaborated on the contribution of LankaPay to the national economy. “By routing the domestic interbank payments locally, we have brought in greater level of autonomy to the country’s financial system. We have been able to save a substantial amount of foreign exchange to the country and have brought down the transaction costs substantially to both banks and their customers. We have also enabled affordable financial services to be available for a larger segment of the population in the country.”
This year’s ‘Technnovation’ awards will be held on October 7 at the Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo with the theme being ‘the clear touch’. “The objectives of the awards are to recognise the contribution by our members towards the growth of the financial sector of the country and to promote electronic modes of payments being in line with the Central Bank’s vision to achieve financial inclusivity and to enhance efficiency of the country’s national payment network to achieve financial sector stability,” stated Mr. Silva.
As eligibility criteria and application process, Mr. Silva explained that all licensed banks and financial institutions who are members of LankaClear or any other third party developers active and connected to LankaPay network nominated by the acquiring banks will be eligible for the proposed awards. Third party application is a payment platform operated by a separate legal entity which must be different to the bank or the financial institute acquiring the same platform. The awards are applicable only for interbank transactions taking place via LankaPay network.
For each year the awards will consider the performance of immediate past financial year and performance against the previous financial year in absolute or percentage basis. The evaluation for this year’s awards will be based on the performance from April 2018 to March 2019, noted Mr. Silva.