ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s Cargills Bank, owned by the Cargills group, has got regulatory approval to operate banking counters at all its Food City supermarkets islandwide, helping it keep costs low.
The bank’s chairman Louis Page said a key competitive advantage of Cargills Bank centred on the retail network of over 350 Cargills Food City outlets spread across the length and breadth of the country.
“The Cargills outlets offer banking customers convenience with low overhead for the bank,” he said in the bank’s annual report for 2017 which was just released.
The bank is converting Cargills Food City (CFC) cashier counters to banking counters.
“During the year the bank was able to obtain approval for all its CFC outlets to operate as banking agencies,” the report said.
The year under review saw the opening of 3 new branches in Wattala, Ratnapura and Kaduruwela in September, October and December.
The report said that with technology being a strategic priority, Cargills Bank has been able to enable the deposit and withdrawal of funds 365 days of the year, from 8 am to 11 pm., by converting supermarket checkouts to simple but versatile banking counters.
“This complements the bank’s ability to compete in a non-traditional banking space where there is much untapped potential amongst hitherto excluded segments and the SME sector of the country.”
Cargills Bank said it will increase investments and focus on electronic and mobile banking channels to augment the extensive retail banking channels at CFC and carve out a niche by serving the underbanked and offering the best in customer convenience.
“Our unique retail and SME- focused and technology- led model, with the aim of offering customers new paradigms in convenience and speed of service, is based on an “Operational Expenditure model” rather than a Capital Expenditure based one,” it said.
“This approach places us on a firmer foundation of lower costs with greater agility and nimbleness to adapt to rapidly evolving technology.”
The bank’s chairman Louis Page said a key competitive advantage of Cargills Bank centred on the retail network of over 350 Cargills Food City outlets spread across the length and breadth of the country.
“The Cargills outlets offer banking customers convenience with low overhead for the bank,” he said in the bank’s annual report for 2017 which was just released.
The bank is converting Cargills Food City (CFC) cashier counters to banking counters.
“During the year the bank was able to obtain approval for all its CFC outlets to operate as banking agencies,” the report said.
The year under review saw the opening of 3 new branches in Wattala, Ratnapura and Kaduruwela in September, October and December.
The report said that with technology being a strategic priority, Cargills Bank has been able to enable the deposit and withdrawal of funds 365 days of the year, from 8 am to 11 pm., by converting supermarket checkouts to simple but versatile banking counters.
“This complements the bank’s ability to compete in a non-traditional banking space where there is much untapped potential amongst hitherto excluded segments and the SME sector of the country.”
Cargills Bank said it will increase investments and focus on electronic and mobile banking channels to augment the extensive retail banking channels at CFC and carve out a niche by serving the underbanked and offering the best in customer convenience.
“Our unique retail and SME- focused and technology- led model, with the aim of offering customers new paradigms in convenience and speed of service, is based on an “Operational Expenditure model” rather than a Capital Expenditure based one,” it said.
“This approach places us on a firmer foundation of lower costs with greater agility and nimbleness to adapt to rapidly evolving technology.”
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