HNB launches state-of-the-art ‘Centre of Aspiration’

Sri Lanka’s most digitally innovative bank, HNB PLC, announced the launch of its state-of-the-art Centre of Aspiration, a new centralized unit within the bank dedicated solely to manage the bank’s debt collection operations.

Situated at the bank’s Head Office in Colombo 10, the Centre of Aspiration will now be handling all collections operations that had previously been distributed across 252 branches island-wide. The launch of the HNB Centre of Aspiration follows the recent opening of its Centre of Excellence, another dedicated facility set-up to centralize Credit and Operational processes across the branch network, as part of a wider strategy to centralize its back-end processes. This would strengthen frontline staff efforts to engage in marketing, customer service and networking.

This initiative will add significant value to HNB’s vision 2020 aspirations and it’s transformational journey, specifically fulfilling its aspirations to have the most diversified asset portfolio with the lowest NPA by 2020 according to HNB Managing Director/CEO, Jonathan Alles.

Manned by a team of 60 at first, the Centre of Aspiration is spearheaded by HNB Chief Risk Officer/Assistant General Manager Risk Damith Pallewatte. Elaborating on the approach being taken at the Centre of Aspiration, Engaging the customer early in order to remind and follow-up on any upcoming payments or missed payments will positively transform the culture and focus on debt collection within HNB to be more customer centric. He reiterated that early contact, flexibility and consistency supported by the state-of-the-art technology would be fundamental to the success of this unit.

Gracing the launch event was HNB Board Director Rose Cooray. Addressing the gathering, she highlighted the importance of ensuring skills development in order to keep staff engaged in collections activities which in turn will enable a deeper understanding of customers and an improved ability to meet and exceed expectations. She also emphasized the importance of the centralized collection unit to continuously improve the quality of the loan book.  Also participating in the launch was HNB Chief Operating Officer Dilshan Rodrigo and HNB Centralized Collections Manager Piyakara Jayarathne, who also addressed the gathering on the potential of the new unit to further strengthen the HNB’s bottom-line.