brand logo

Digital solutions instead of new branches 

26 Sep 2021

  • In conversation with Sanjaya Perera and Shiyan Jayaweera of NDB 
BY Imesh Ranasinghe  National Development Bank PLC (NDB) who excelled with seven awards as a banking group at the recently concluded Asian Banking and Finance Awards 2021, organised by the Asian Banking and Finance Magazine of Singapore is looking to provide digital solutions to its customers in the future while reducing costs as much as possible.  In an interview with The Sunday Morning Business, NDB Senior Vice President – Personal Banking and Customer Experience Sanjaya Perera said while having 113 branches around the country to serve its customers, the bank wants to cover the entire country by providing digital solutions rather than opening up new branches.  Through a door-to-door deposit and withdrawal services by branches and online applications such as NEOS, so that customers don’t need branches around them to do their day-to-day transactions, NDB wants to take the bank to the digital space where the customer will not have to step into a branch for services.  “There are a lot of central bank regulations as well as the banks have had to cope up with the moratorium as the customers were not able to settle their facilities and with the moratorium further extended, we need to facilitate those and whilst doing that we need to manage our cost,” Perera explained.  The bank has restricted its cost mostly, even the cost associated with marketing, except previously committed costs NDB wants to keep its cost flat as possible as they can.  The financial performance of NDB in the last one-year period has been phenomenal and consistently above the market averages. NDB joined hands with SL@100 on June 2021, and talking about it, Perera noted that SL@100 has helped the bank by bringing in experts and advising the bank’s business customers, while SL@100 is assisting the bank in finding resources, people, locations, and all the other logistics in conducting seminars to inform and advise its customers.  “It is a good platform for the bank’s business customers to look at the options that they have,” Perera said.  Marketing role of NDB’s long term strategy  Speaking about the NDB group’s five-year strategy “Voyage 2025”, NDB Assistant Vice President Head – Marketing Shiyan Jayaweera said that the strategy is built around six key pillars namely business focus, operational excellence, digital as an enabler, customer experience, best in class and group synergy.  Within these key pillars, he noted that the role of marketing is to drive the bank’s customer experience with digital as an enabler.   “What the customer mainly wants from a bank is security, convenience, and simplification. The bank is looking at digitisation to drive this forward and with the outcome of how the customers have changed during the pandemic,” he said.  Apart from the apps, digitisation will be brought in by the bank internally to process such things, all with the aim of security, convenience, and simplification.  However, he said behavioural changes are going to happen constantly and after three waves of the pandemic people have restricted their movements but post-lockdown or Covid-19 the behaviours will change again in line with the digitisation.  The marketing team of the bank is monitoring the trends, and the current needs the customer has now are to move their transaction online in terms of payments.  Jayaweera stated that in the future when customers need to do financial transactions not just with the bank but with other vendors, the bank will partner up with relevant parties just as they did during lockdown to provide services to customers.  Further, he said in general when all industries are undergoing rapid digitalisation with the advancement of technology, keeping up-to-date and gearing up on that front is going to be important for any business.  “The need to understand the new technologies that are coming, which will be consumer-friendly, and digital technology upskilling is our priority,” Jayaweera said.  Moreover, he said that the marketing team is currently ongoing training plans which are focused on data mining and analytics to understand how the market is behaving especially during the current situation of the country.  Bank’s role during the pandemic  NDB was among the first banks in Sri Lanka to support its customers when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country in March 2020.  The bank management quickly got together and put three mobile Automated Teller Machine (ATM) vehicles during the lockdown mainly in the Western Province and then to other parts of the country. This served the purposes of many customers of the bank as well as customers of other banks as they could withdraw money and pay utility bills through the ATM.  “We didn’t stop at that, we actually invited Finagle Lanka, bringing the bakery products alone with our vehicle and it was a novel experience for the customers, it was actually helpful for them in that situation,” Perera said. NDB also joined hands with Daraz to help its customers who could not get their products to consumers during the initial lockdown. NDB customers who are suppliers and manufacturers signed up with the Daraz platform and were able to sell their materials or products through the online platform. NDB branches supported customers in the signing up process.  The bank also managed to establish and introduce to its customers, an electronic ledger system by joining hands with several IT companies in the country, which could monitor supplier transactions and others at a very low cost.  To motivate its staff and the rest of the country who were impacted by the pandemic, the bank also introduced the Jayagamu Sri Lanka song which was composed and sung by its staff. The Jayagamu Sri Lanka export facilitation was then introduced to NDB exporters and innovators who received benefits through the bank’s signing up with Maersk shipping. Through Maersk, the bank facilitated the shipping of its customer exporters and innovators who were manufacturing, but had no experience in export operations, have a customer base, or buyers in the international market.  Also, the first insurance up to $ 30,000 was provided to exporters through two insurance companies Fairfirst and Sri Lanka Insurance, which was provided free of charge, while exporters were also signed with Cord360 who had the international market.  Through this facilitation products such as treacle, jaggery, and cashew nuts were exported, providing for the need of the hour.  Revolutionary NEOS mobile app  In the meantime, the NEOS mobile app was introduced to customers by NDB to do their daily transactions as they did not have access to their respective branches.  According to Perera, since its introduction, the NEOS app had been popularised among customers where about 80% of bank transactions are done online even when there is a period of normalcy in the country.  Customers benefit from the app as it has fewer charges when doing transactions through the app. NDB has enhanced the NEOS app to be the best mobile app in Sri Lanka and has made it user-friendly and customer-centric using biometrics rather than having a password for the enhanced convenience of customers.  The bank staff also takes care to guide on how to download and operate the app for senior citizen customers. The NEOS app is also now enhanced to account opening without stepping into the bank through vKYC (Video Know-Your-Customer) utilising AI technology.  Via vKYC, a customer will be able to open any type of account on video with a staff member of the bank where the bank will real-time confirm the identity details of the relevant customer with the database of the Department for the Registration of Persons, with whom NDB has signed up with.  Through the video meeting, the AI will confirm the relevant customer with the credentials they have given for the account opening. “It’s a very secure way of opening accounts and once the interview is done the type of account the customer wants will be opened and the account number will be messaged to the customer immediately,” Perera said. 


More News..