The increase in the use of technology in the financial industry (fintech) is changing the face of entire banking and financial sector and Sri Lanka has the potential to become a world class centre for Fintech businesses owing to its higher literacy rate, penetration of banking accounts and the distinctive mobile network, Chief FinTech Officer of Monitory Authority of Singapore Sopnedu Mohanty said.
He made these observations delivering the keynote speech at Lankapay Technnovation Awards 2017 held in Colombo.
To accelerate digital innovation in the financial sector, Mohanty insisted that the regulators need to conduct experiments rather than following old- fashioned white papers or desk policies on technology.
“If you write a white paper on technology, by the time the white paper becomes a policy, the technology has changed. The only way to catch up with technology is to do experiments”
Smartness of a true financial sector comes when you partner with neighbours and start building a network of smart centres,” he said.
Noting the regulators’ inability to understand disruptive technologies in a proper way, Mohanty urged that policy makers need to think and act carefully when it comes to building a truly outstanding digitally enabled financial sector.
Chief Guest at the event, Central Bank Governor Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy highlighted that Sri Lanka needs to have a export driven public private partnership model to garner economic benefits and to avert declining exports as a percentage of GDP. The governor also noted that the Central Bank of Sri Lanka is in the process of adjusting fiscal and monetary policy to stabilize the inflation from 4% to 3-2% range.
Bank of Ceylon bagged the pinnacle of all awards by winning the Gold as the Overall Winner for “Excellence in Interbank Payments” while Seylan Bank claimed the Silver Award as the Overall Runner Up. The Overall Merit Award was secured by Union Bank of Colombo PLC.
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