Cinnamon Grand Colombo and Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo General Manager and John Keells Group Vice President Kamal Munasinghe (third from left) exchanges LANKAQR with HNB Deputy General Manager Retail and SME Banking Sanjay Wijemanne (fourth from left) in the presence of (from left) Cinnamon Grand Colombo Head of IT Shiran Tissera, Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts Vice President Finance Shanaka Silva, HNB Head of Digital Business Chammika Weerasinghe, HNB Digital Pay Products Executive Ishan Karannagoda, HNB Lead Product Management SOLO Harold Elanco and HNB Senior Manager Business Development Piyakara Jayaratne

Pioneering the evolution of cashless and contactless payments in the tourism sector, Sri Lanka’s leading private sector bank HNB PLC partnered with Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts to launch the LANKAQR facility for the renowned hospitality chain’s portfolio of restaurants. 

Following increasingly rapid adoption from Sri Lanka’s tier-one merchants, Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts is also coming on board to offer guests at the restaurants of the hotels: Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo and Cinnamon Grand Colombo, with the convenience of contactless payments via QR codes. HNB DGM Retail and SME Banking Sanjay Wijemanne, HNB Head of Digital Business Chammika Weerasinghe, HNB Senior Manager Business Development Piyakara Jayaratne, HNB Digital Pay Products Executive Ishan Karannagoda, HNB Lead Product Management SOLO, Harold Elanco and Cinnamon Grand Colombo and Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo General Manager and John Keells Group Vice President Kamal Munasinghe, Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts Vice President Finance Shanaka Silva and Cinnamon Grand Colombo  Head of IT Shiran Tissera graced the ceremony held to launch the facility at Cinnamon Grand Colombo. 

“It is imperative that we continue embracing digital payments across all industries in Sri Lanka. The pandemic may have driven the initial conversion to QR-based payments but we are now seeing a new wave of customers, who are using the facility for the convenience and reliability it offers across QR-enabled platforms like HNB SOLO, which are gaining rapid traction and are a must-have among customers,” Wijemanne said. 

Notably, the customers have the option of completing a transaction by scanning the Dynamic QR code, a unique QR code generated for the transaction. This allows the customers using an app linked with the LANKAQR initiative to make contactless purchases at stores by simply scanning the Dynamic QR, which appears on the display screen of the point of sale (PoS) machine. 

The facility is also beneficial to merchants as the integration of HNB’s system with the merchant’s cash PoS results in real-time confirmation of the purchase credited to the merchant’s account for JustPay transactions. Additionally, the transaction fee that the merchants are levied for using the LANKAQR platform under Just Pay transactions is significantly lower.

Moreover, the partnership will enable all Sri Lankans, including customers of other banks, to complete transactions seamlessly at Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts. 

“The past two years have been a trying time for the tourism industry and the whole nation. But we are fortunate to finally see a gradual recovery take hold. In order to help the industry bounce back, we must be ready to change and adapt much more rapidly than ever before. The addition of digital payment solutions brings an added level of comfort, convenience and safety for our guests,” Munasinghe said.