Special rates from BOC for Women’s Day

Long-term champions of women’s empowerment through financial independence, Bank of Ceylon (BOC) marks the International Women’s Day with a special savings offer exclusively for women. 

‘Kantha Ran Ginum’, which carries an attractive interest rate, has expanded and matured over the years since it was first launched in 1992 to be broad based into a digital format – ‘Kantha Ran Ginum SmartGen’, to cater to the changing demands of the modern woman. The savings certificates are offered in denominations of Rs.25,000, Rs.50,000, Rs.100,000, Rs.250,000 and Rs.500,000. 

The United Nations’ 2024 theme for the International Women’s Day on March 8 is ‘Invest in women: accelerate progress’. This theme is in direct alignment with the UN declaration of the fifth Sustainable Development Goal of achieving gender equality and empowering all women by 2030. In 2022, the participation of males in the total labour force of Sri Lanka was 70.7 percent, which completely overshadows women, who accounted for only 33.1 percent.  

BOC’s leadership in financing women entrepreneurship and empowerment through financial self-sufficiency is now legendary. The bank is also a key initiator in assisting and supporting women’s entrepreneurship in the SME sector, with special focus on assisting rural women to be financially self-sufficient through their various microfinance schemes for home-based industries. 

Deputy General Manager Recovery Provinces Rochelle Fernando said that Kantha Ran Ginum is a unique saving opportunity for women, as it offers several additional benefits like instant loans up to 90 percent of the account balance, life insurance cover up to 10 times of the minimum balance, subject to a maximum of Rs.500,000 (up to 60 years of age), low-interest loans and globally accepted BOC debit/credit cards.