CCL prescription for good business

The chairperson of Commercial Credit Ltd (CCL), which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, says they value their employees and ‘everybody is somebody here.’ “CCL operates on a family system. It is a place where people are recognized and the company rises to the occasion when the need arises when some person is in difficulty,” Vagdevi Fernando said at a celebratory function in Kandy.

CCL established on October 4, 1982 was the brainchild of the late K. H. Donald Fernando, its founder Chairman. The other two directors were the late Arthur Fernando, the first Managing Director and George Hemachandra, who was the chief guest at the celebratory event.

The company started with a capital of Rs 805,000, nine shareholders and five employees. Twenty five years later the board of directors has eight members with an issued share capital of 31 million and a staff of 130.

Recalling the developments over the past 25 years, Fernando said during the late 80s there were over 75 institutions engaged in the financial business seeking deposits from the public.

“All of a sudden these companies began to crash and all those who had deposited their hard earned monies were at the receiving end. In short they had lost everything,” she said adding that at this point the Central Bank stepped in and declared that all those who were seeking public deposits had to come under the purview of the Central Bank.

Out of the 75 then engaged in finance business only 24 companies were able to obtain registration from the Central Bank. “Of the 24 companies I am indeed very happy and proud to state that Commercial Credit was the youngest and the smallest finance company to be registered under the Central Bank,” she said.

She traced CCL developments including being appointed as the principal agent for the National Insurance Corporation and branching out of Kandy to Hingurakgoda, Anuradhapura and Ratnapura. In 2005 a new investor -Visara Capital Management (Pvt) Ltd – came on board and the directorate was expanded to accommodate two nominated members from this company and a General Manager was appointed as C.E.O/Director.

Fernando said vast strides have been made in the field of technology where customer convenience deliveries have undergone massive changes.

SMS banking coupled with a host of customer contract conveniences have been launched with many more facilities in the pipeline which will be rolled out to the customer through telecommunication service providers. The company, she said, has been involved in many Corporate Social Responsibility projects including refurbishments of neurology wards of the Kandy General Hospital and the OPD of the Medirigiriya Hospital.

She said Rs 2.5 million has been set aside to be distributed amongst staff members by way of company shares according to service.