• ICTA Board Member Harsha Purasinghe on rolling out digital payments across the country

From traffic fines to streamlining state payments, Sri Lanka’s GovPay is reshaping how citizens interact with Government services. On ‘Kaleidoscope’ we feature Information Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) Board Member Harsha Purasinghe to discuss GovPay, driving digital adoption, and what is next in the bold push to make Sri Lanka’s public services smarter, faster, and cleaner. 

Following are excerpts from the interview:

What exactly is GovPay?

GovPay is the Government’s digital payment platform where any citizen from anywhere can pay for any Government service. It is as simple as using your usual internet banking, mobile banking or financial technology channel. Through these apps, you can pay for any of GovPay’s services with a tap of a finger.

How has the response been?

We officially launched GovPay on 7 February of this year. Since then, we have grown phenomenally. At this juncture, we have over 55 institutions connected to GovPay and over 500 services ranging from education institutions to various business services, Provincial Councils (PCs) and Local Government (LG) authorities, and the likes of the Police Department. 

From hundreds of thousands of Rupees, we have crossed Rs. 85 million in revenue within the last seven months. 

What has been the response to the newly launched traffic fine app? 

The traffic fine pilot was launched on a small stretch from Kurunegala to Anuradhapura just before the Sinhala and Tamil New Year this year and it was a success. The pilot proved that the concept works and that people have been paying fines. 

Then, we had to do some work to get special Cabinet of Ministers approval to use GovPay as a mechanism to pay traffic fines digitally. Once Cabinet approval was given, we started the islandwide rollout, first in the Western Province (WP). 

We conducted an extensive workshop involving all the Traffic Police officers in the WP and launched the operation on 4 August. Since the launch, we have crossed over 700 fines being paid amounting to over Rs. 1 million worth of fines, through the GovPay option. 

Is there a way that people can circumvent the app, returning to that milieu of bribery and corruption?

If somebody does not have a smartphone, you can simply call a family member or a friend to pay on your behalf. That is the first option. If a driver does not have a smartphone, they can call the owner of the vehicle and ask for the transaction to be done on their behalf. The other option is to go to the post office and pay the fine the old-fashioned way. That option is still there; we have not taken it out. 

If I explain how this works: you can simply use your internet banking or mobile banking app or any of the popular fintech apps. GovPay.lk has extensive information on how to use the service, not only for traffic fines but how to use GovPay for other departments and institutions as well. Simply follow the process.  

With the traffic app, once you are fined/charged for an offence, the Police officer will inform you of the fine to be paid. If you say, ‘Can I pay using GovPay?’, then he/she will give you a temporary driving licence number or he/she might not even issue it since you are paying it right there.

You don’t need to fill a fine sheet now. Go to your internet banking site, select GovPay and the relevant Police station. A digital form will appear, which you then fill and pay. The fine will be deducted from your bank account and immediately deposited to the Police account. The Police officer will get a Short Message Service (SMS) text; the officer will show you the phone number that you need to enter. After paying, you collect your licence and move on. 

What is the onus on the Police officer to make sure that the person who is fined actually pays and is there any room for the Police officer to say, ‘No, you don’t need to pay, we’ll work it out’?

Regardless of what kind of digital system is provided, that human-to-human element will be there, unless you have bodycams and recordings. The Police officers have been very positive; they have been very forward-looking and very supportive. This is only the first step. 

The second step we are planning is to provide a smart device to Police officers, so without going through the processing process, the Police officer can select your offence on the smart device and then you can either use your credit/debit card, quick response (QR) code, or any payment mechanism to settle the fine. This device will also be able to see offences made in the past by the driver, scan the number plate and see registration details – it can do so many things. 

The next step is bringing the new merit system or point system. You will have 24 points and once you have exhausted them, your licence will be suspended. There could be amendments to this point system in the future based on how we are going to deploy it. 

Many other countries have successfully rolled out such solutions and the Police want to see these steps being implemented. We are pursuing a long-term vision. 

What are the challenges you have faced or have been facing in encouraging the public to use GovPay?

Adoption is one of the key challenges for us right now. We have a phenomenal number of institutions on board and revenue has also increased, but, revenue can increase multi-fold. We need to drive more awareness initiatives. 

There’s a series of grassroot-level awareness programmes already planned out, which we intend to execute. The reason that we didn’t go for full-blown execution is that we wanted to get some critical mass – which means that we needed to have several institutions onboard – after which creating public awareness makes sense. 

We will be using above the line and below the line mechanisms. If you go to a PC or LG body office, you will see ‘Pay using GovPay’ posters. The cost of paying for a Government service is lower than the minimum bus fare, which is Rs. 28. Any GovPay transaction is only Rs. 15. 

As an example – if a traffic fine is Rs. 3,000, if the fine is paid through GovPay, the cost incurred is Rs. 15 plus Rs. 3,000. If the fine is paid to a post office, there is an additional payment of 10% to the Posts Department, leading to a total of Rs. 3,300.

How do you plan on increasing the use of GovPay among those who are not very tech savvy and those who have limited digital access?

Awareness creation is one of the priorities. Even at grassroot levels, there is a phenomenal level of smartphone penetration in the country. What is needed is awareness and access. There are different drives in the Government to enable inclusivity and bring those people also into the system. Until such time of course, they can use the traditional methods of making payments. However, we are actively looking at options. 

The beauty of GovPay is that you can pay on behalf of others, so, even if you don’t have access, somebody else can pay on your behalf. 

What are the next steps for GovPay? 

One of the initiatives that we are looking at is bringing in a unified Government payments app. Rather than logging into your bank account, going through a menu to find where GovPay is, and going through that entire process, we are trying to improve the user experience by coming up with a GovPay app, which could be part of the Government’s super app. There’s a plan to bring in a citizen-centric super app, so that digital payments will be part of that.

The other thing is that we take onboard all other key Government institutions. One of the institutions that we will take onboard very soon is the Tourist Board. Imagine the potential there? People don’t need to go anywhere; they can do their restaurant and other licence renewals online and, most importantly, the Tourism Development Levy will be completely using GovPay online. That will be huge and that revenue is massive. 

We already have several universities and vocational training institutes onboard. We want to make sure that adoption increases in this area. We see a lot of adoption during intakes, so, we want to make sure that GovPay becomes the primary payment mechanism for payments. 

The other most interesting thing that we are going to connect very soon is card payments. Right now, it’s direct bank account access. With card payments, you can pay through Visa and Mastercard. We managed to negotiate to less than 1%, so, for any Government payment, you will pay less than 1% for a transaction.

We are planning to connect all the diplomatic mission offices globally as well, so that our diaspora can pay using cards instead of paying cash to diplomatic missions. We plan to do this within the next few months. 

This is a vast initiative. How do you ensure the protection and security of people’s data – both personal and financial? 

GovPay is inside the internet banking system, so it’s very well protected. If you want to hack into that, you first need to hack into the bank’s internet banking. Due to that, since it’s wrapped within, it’s very secure. 

Also, this is powered by the national payment switch, LankaPay, which has done all the extensive tests – including penetration, vulnerability, and security tests, especially with the Computer Emergency Readiness Team – so that all those things are taken care of. Even when we bring in other mechanisms and instruments, we continuously look at data protection and security angles in adopting those services.

Do you see GovPay as the long-term solution to streamline the Government’s revenue collection?

I think so. Previously, GovPay was just a pilot project that had been abandoned without proper direction. Today, with the momentum that we see, I see no reason why we can’t achieve Rs. 1 billion in 12 months and aim for Rs. 1 trillion in four-five years. 

If we aim for Rs. 1 trillion, we are adding nearly United States Dollars ($) 3 billion to the digital economy. The Government has a target or ambition of achieving $ 15 billion and I think that GovPay itself can contribute $ 3 billion to the digital economy if we execute really well and create mass adoption.

The GovPay brand is getting stronger; it’s a widely discussed brand now. We have a lot of other interesting plans; for example, maybe a GovPay card, like a transit card for public transport payments. This is because we want to now leverage on the GovPay brand as people now know that GovPay is the system to make digital payments to any Government service. We want to piggyback on that and carry out many other initiatives.

(The writer is the host, director, and co-producer of the weekly digital programme ‘Kaleidoscope with Savithri Rodrigo’ which can be viewed on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. She has over three decades of experience in print, electronic, and social media)