DFCC Bank launches ‘DFCC Agile’ innovation centre of excellence

Handing over the partnership agreement by Mafaz Ishaq - Chief Executive Officer, Innovation Quotient (IQ) (fourth from left) to Lakshman Silva - Chief Executive Officer, DFCC Bank PLC (fifth from left).  From left: Sonali Jayasinghe- Senior Vice President Human Resources, DFCC Bank PLC, Nishan Weerasooriya - Head of IT, DFCC Bank PLC, Shafraz Faleel - Co-Founder & Chief Commercial Officer, Innovation Quotient (IQ), Dinesh Jebamani - Vice President Digital Strategy, DFCC Bank PLC, Thimal Perera- Deputy Chief Executive Officer, DFCC Bank PLC, Nilmini Gunaratne - Vice President Marketing & Sustainability, DFCC Bank PLC

DFCC Bank in striving towards the goal of becoming the most customer-centric and digitally-enabled financial institution by 2025, recently launched its own innovation centre of excellence (Innovation Hub) in collaboration with Innovation Quotient (IQ).

DFCC Agile, the title given to the Innovation Centre of Excellence (ICOE) was based on employee feedback who will be the key stakeholders in this endeavour. 

This hub referred to as ‘DFCC Agile - Innovation Centre of Excellence will develop an innovation road map with external partners and varied teams in the bank through multiple iterations and reviews on an ongoing basis. This process will facilitate the outcome of many out of the box initiatives that will be taken to market as new financial propositions for customers.

In order to set up such a hub, DFCC Bank has chosen Innovation Quotient (IQ) to be a partner in their journey to collaborate and implement the innovation management process and strategy in two phases. 

DFCC selected IQ due to its local expertise in innovation, design thinking and business design with over 100,000 hours of expertise will be leveraged to co-create an innovation roadmap, build capacity, launch a DFCC innovation toolkit and facilitate creative transformation. 

Speaking on this new chapter for the Bank, DFCC Bank CEO Lakshman Silva said, “As we embark on this new digital-first and innovation forward drive at DFCC Bank, it brings me great joy to announce the launch of DFCC Agile - Innovation Centre of Excellence which will be instrumental in benchmarking the future of banking in Sri Lanka. 

We at DFCC believe in the design thinking process as a practice that facilitates divergent and innovative thinking yet anchors it within the realms of the bank and their strategic aspiration since the future is all about customer experience and agility.”

 CEO of Innovation Quotient, Mafaz Ishaq, added, “IQ is delighted to partner DFCC Agile - their Innovation Centre of Excellence. The “ICOE” unit will reach the length and breadth of DFCC and will act as a catalyst in applying design thinking principles and incubating innovative ideas, products and services working with both internal and external stakeholders.”