SLBA Chairman & Board Members at the Meeting with Central Bank Governor

The Sri Lanka Banks Association (SLBA), in a meeting with the Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) yesterday, pledged its fullest support to revive the country’s economy, following the damage inflicted by Cyclone Ditwah.

The banks represented by the association stated that a detailed impact assessment has already been initiated across the banks to identify the impact to individuals, small businesses and large corporates and encouraged the impacted customers to speak to their respective bank branch managers.

Based on the findings, the banks pledged to offer suitable financial assistance through a disaster debt relief package, to ensure the individuals and businesses impacted by Cyclone Ditwah are able to return to normalcy without delay. As a regulated industry, all relief measures will be undertaken in discussion with the CBSL.

The banks also confirmed their readiness to actively participate in economic relief programmes that may be initiated by the government in partnership with the multilateral development agencies.

In addition, the individual member banks have indicated they will review the pending gold loan auctions with a view to exploring the possibility of delaying the process where viable, to provide the affected borrowers more time to repay and redeem, the SLBA said.

The SLBA noted that the banking sector has always stepped forward to support economic revival and nation building in times of crisis, including most recently, the Covid-19 pandemic and economic crisis of 2022 and pledged to do so during the current crisis as well.

The SLBA is the apex industry body of all licensed commercial banks and licensed specialised banks, with a membership of 29 banks in the country.