8 May 2017 10:12 am
Sri Lanka’s most digitally innovative bank, Hatton National Bank PLC (HNB), announced a breakthrough partnership with e-commerce software as a service (SaaS) provider, WEBXPAY, to launch an integrated e-commerce platform aimed at empowering micro, small and medium businesses in Sri Lanka to adapt to e-commerce.
With technology-driven paradigms engulfing all walks of life in Sri Lanka, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) too are seeking cost-effective solutions capable of serving as a gateway into the island’s rapidly expanding e-commerce market. Having consistently served as a ‘Partner in Progress’ to SMEs across the country for decades, HNB announced that it would be launching an islandwide programme across all of its 252 customer centre, the bank is ideally positioned to enable a cashless payments revolution in Sri Lanka.
WEBXPAY, a start-up which has been in business for about 10 months and which professes to be the ‘Face of Change in Sri Lanka’, have already on-boarded over 450 merchants into their platform and these merchants are transacting and reaching out to not only a larger share of the Sri Lankan market but also generating sales out of far out markets like the USA. Commenting on the groundbreaking partnership with WEBXPAY, HNB Managing Director/CEO Jonathan Alles said, “MSMEs are the backbone of the Sri Lankan economy, contributing a significant proportion of for a large slice of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), despite lagging behind the larger businesses due to limited access to financial services and technology-based on cost factors and complexity.