Sri Lanka Interbank Payment System SLIPS clears Rs 346bn

26th July 2011, www.dailynews.lk

The volume of transactions through the Sri Lanka Interbank Payment System (SLIPS) operated by LankaClear (Pvt) Ltd. (LCPL) grew by a significant 32 percent from the financial year 2009 and 10 to 2010 and 11 the value of transactions grew by 19 percent during the same period.

The total value of transaction cleared through SLIPS during the financial year 2010 and 2011 was Rs 346 billion.

SLIPS is currently more commonly used for salary payments, pension payments, customer account to account fund transfers, standing orders, insurance payments, credit cards settlements, dividend payments and IPO refunds. LankaClear Sri Lanka’s premier catalyst for facilitating progressive payment systems infrastructure, has over the years introduced numerous advanced infrastructure systems to the country’s financial landscape.

The Sri Lanka Interbank Payment System (SLIPS) is one such technology that transformed the banking landscape, introducing new and enhanced levels of efficiency, security and cost effectiveness to the interbank fund transfer system.

SLIPS is an online interbank electronic fund transfer system which eliminates the need for paper work in the fund transfer process.

Catering mainly for low-value retail payments - upto Rs 5 million, the system enables the electronic movement of funds from one account to another without the corresponding physical documentation. “The system therefore enables increased levels of security by eliminating the physical movement of paper documentation, faster transfer times and lower infrastructure requirements, ensuring greater revenue generating capabilities, operational efficiencies and cost savings to banking institutions and customers,” the company’s CEO Sunimal Weerasooriya said.

Using SLIPS for payment and recovery of payments will bring tangible benefits to customers.

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LankaClear, National Clearing House of Sri Lanka, Extends Cheque Deposit Time with Improved Settlement Clearing

16th March 2011, www.dailynews.lk, By Charumini De Silva

LankaClear, the National Clearing House of Sri Lanka has made arrangements for banks to extend their cheque deposit cut-off times from April to make cheque payments more convenient in the country.

As a result of upgrading IT infrastructure, LankaClear is now capable of extending the cheque submission time to 7:00 p.m. thus facilitating the banks to extend their cheque deposit cut-off times. This will be effective from April 1, LankaClear (Pvt) Limited Operations Head, Harsha Wanigatunga told Daily News Business.

The company has improved its Settlement Clearing Cycle where cheque return data is provided to the Banks by 1:30 p.m. enabling them to release funds to their customers within the Banking hours on T+1.

This efficiency improvement was made possible by the data transmission for the Settlement Clearing Cycle being online from Monday and with digital signatures for greater security. These improvements have benefited to the end customer as the Disaster Recovery (DR) capabilities have been greatly improved creating a more reliable cheque clearing system, he said.

The launch of the Enhanced SLIPS (Sri Lanka Interbank Payment System) last year was a great success. It is the first paperless, online and highly secured retail clearing system that connects all Commercial Banks via the LankaClear Vitual Private Network (VPN) with end-to-end digital signing.

He said that the enhanced SLIPS was primarily implemented to cater for higher volumes that are expected due to rapid economic growth and to facilitate same day clearing (T+0) thus enabling customers to get good value for fund transfers on the same day.

There has been a commendable growth in SLIPS transaction volumes and around 18 percent annual growth was recorded last year. With the introduction of same day clearing (T+0), it has been observed that the third party customer transfer volumes have increased substantially.

LankaSign, the first financial sector Certificate Service Provider (CSP) operated and managed by LankaClear launched two new products Email/Document Signing Certificates and SSL Server Certificates in February. The company expects that with the introduction of these new products greater security for financial transaction can be achieved and move towards a Greener environment.

“These improvements to the clearing systems will enhance the capacity of payments industry in Sri Lanka to serve all sectors of the economy to support the higher growth path of post-war Sri Lanka,” Wanigatunga said.

LankaClear, has continuously enhanced the Cheque Clearing System (Cheque Image and Truncation System (CITS) to meet the market growth and to create greater efficiency to serve the public in a better manner.

Related Info :

• National Clearing House LankaClear Launches LANKASIGN with Two Digital Products. email Document Signing and SSL Server Certificates

National Clearing House LankaClear Launches LANKASIGN with Two Digital Products. email Document Signing and SSL Server Certificates

10th February 2011, www.dailynews.lk, By Sanjeevi Jayasuriya

e- commerce is the need of the hour and the concept of validity and trust of the transaction is necessary for its effective use.

The Electronic Transaction Act No 19 of 2006 has created a conducive environment for e-commerce to take place and benefit, LankaClear (Pvt) Ltd Head of Operations Harsha Wanigatunga said.

The use of the internet and electronic transactions have evolved rapidly in Sri Lanka facilitating greater customer convenience. It is essential to eliminate information piracy, data theft and computer related crimes to ensure security of information transmitted online, he said.

LankaClear (Pvt) Ltd, the national clearing house, is the financial sector’s certification service provider and it launched LANKASIGN to provide digital certificates for any financial sector enterprise applications and end users which will be made available on the public network.

LANKASIGN launched two products, namely email/ document signing certificate and SSL server certificate to provide secure hardware device to benefit the customers from operational efficiency.

LANKASIGN is a major achievement in the payment and settlement sphere in Sri Lanka. It will encourage more institutions in the financial sector to adopt this cost effective digital certificate based technology for enhanced information security of transactions.

This will also eliminate the need for paper based payment instruments and help the country to engage in e-commerce in a secure environment, he said.

“We will not concentrate on the export market at this moment, but are more concern about the financial sector adopting this facility. This system while guaranteeing the security of documents, e-mails and internet banking access, will also save foreign exchange by obtaining a local certification for security of internet operations and e-commerce activities, Wanigatunga said.