Sri Lanka’s Cargills Bank to list in 2020

ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s Cargills Bank, owned by the Cargills group, is to list on the Colombo stock exchange in 2020, the bank’s chairman Louis Page has said.

“The bank is working towards listing its shares in the CSE in 2020,” he said in the bank’s annual report for 2017 which was just released.
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The largest shareholders of Cargills Bank Limited are Cargills (Ceylon) with a 39.71% stake and CT Holdings with 25.29%.

The Employees’ Provident Fund is the third largest shareholder with a 4.98% stake. About 26% of Cargills Bank shares are held by institutions.
(COLOMBO, April 18, 2018)

Sri Lanka’s Cargills gets ok for banking counters at all supermarkets

ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s Cargills Bank, owned by the Cargills group, has got regulatory approval to operate banking counters at all its Food City supermarkets islandwide, helping it keep costs low.

The bank’s chairman Louis Page said a key competitive advantage of Cargills Bank centred on the retail network of over 350 Cargills Food City outlets spread across the length and breadth of the country.

“The Cargills outlets offer banking customers convenience with low overhead for the bank,” he said in the bank’s annual report for 2017 which was just released.

The bank is converting Cargills Food City (CFC) cashier counters to banking counters.

“During the year the bank was able to obtain approval for all its CFC outlets to operate as banking agencies,” the report said.

The year under review saw the opening of 3 new branches in Wattala, Ratnapura and Kaduruwela in September, October and December.

The report said that with technology being a strategic priority, Cargills Bank has been able to enable the deposit and withdrawal of funds 365 days of the year, from 8 am to 11 pm., by converting supermarket checkouts to simple but versatile banking counters.

“This complements the bank’s ability to compete in a non-traditional banking space where there is much untapped potential amongst hitherto excluded segments and the SME sector of the country.”

Cargills Bank said it will increase investments and focus on electronic and mobile banking channels to augment the extensive retail banking channels at CFC and carve out a niche by serving the underbanked and offering the best in customer convenience.

“Our unique retail and SME- focused and technology- led model, with the aim of offering customers new paradigms in convenience and speed of service, is based on an “Operational Expenditure model” rather than a Capital Expenditure based one,” it said.

“This approach places us on a firmer foundation of lower costs with greater agility and nimbleness to adapt to rapidly evolving technology.”
(COLOMBO, April 19, 2018)

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Cargills have been aggressively opening too many branches recently. By now even branches are opened far away from main roads. So they must be trying to kill two birds with one stone.

However earlier CBSL was not infavour of opening bank branches within retail shops. Even Arpico tried to do the same with Arpico Finance.

This approach will find any Central Bank difficult to do on-site supervisions. This kind of joint operations will end up with many difficult issues and lack of regulating.

Cargills had been investing in poor quality human resources (based on my experiences at their retail shops) and unless they up their act, only a handful will ever visit their bank outlets.

Sri Lanka’s Cargills Bank targets millennials, with young staff, mobile apps

ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s Cargills Bank, owned by the Cargills group, says its focus on digital technology like mobile apps and a relatively young workforce will help it better target millennials as customers.

“The bank’s technology focus and enhancing convenience through its extensive (Cargills Food City) network is a key strategy which is proving successful in attracting millennials, for whom speed and convenience are key value drivers,” Managing Director Rajendra Theagarajah said.

The bank’s chairman Louis Page has said a key competitive advantage of Cargills Bank centred on its retail network of over 350 Cargills Food City outlets across the country, all of which now have regulatory approval to do banking.

Theagarajah told shareholders in the bank’s annual report for 2017 that the year under review saw the pioneering of several initiatives towards luring millennials with product offerings aimed at this segment of customers.

“We launched Social banking where banking transactions can be carried out by connecting Facebook to the Mobile Banking App,” Theagarajah said.

The bank considers its Mobile Banking App as one of its unique selling points which enables customers to make utility bill payments, transfer money and open accounts and fixed deposits on smart phones.

Cargills Bank said in 2017 it started ‘Social Media Banking’ with its “Pay a Friend via Facebook” campaign.This has “proven to be particularly popular amongst millennials who can now pay a friend instantly across the restaurant table if they have not taken cash to a dinner or lunch meeting.”

The bank’s new ‘Lifestyle Banking’ website was selected among the top 20 Visually Stunning Website Designs among Banks & Credit Unions by The Financial Brand, a digital publication covering the way financial institutions build their brands.

Theagarajah said that as much as 90% of the four-year-old bank’s team of 451 employees is below the age of 40 years.

This, he said, reflects “a younger workforce with high energy and the ability to understand and cater to facets unique to millennials, helping the bank become a champion of digital disruption in the retail banking space.”

Cargills Bank follows a “lean model, with a higher number of sales staff vis a vis back office staff – a model founded on state of the art technology,” the annual report said.
(COLOMBO, April 20, 2018)