Industry sets clear goals at inaugural Sri Lanka Fintech Summit

The inaugural Sri Lanka Fintech Summit 2025, held recently, marked a decisive step in shaping the country’s modern, inclusive and investment-ready digital economy. 

Designed as more than just a conference, the event united policymakers, regulators, investors and fintech leaders to define industry priorities for the year ahead. 

It also attracted several leading international and local fintech experts, investors, global fintech influences and start-ups fulfilling a clear objective of the industry. 

Another major requirement of the industry was to bring all the stakeholders together, such as banks, NBFIs, fintech companies, start-ups and financial sector service providers, to collaborate and grow the ecosystem, which was clearly achieved as an outcome of the summit. 

“Our members wanted international experts to share knowledge, investors to see what we are building, start-ups to present their solutions and youth to understand the future they will shape to fulfil a core objective of the association,” said Fintech Forum Sri Lanka Chairman Channa de Silva. 

“Most importantly, we needed to leave with concrete action points for the industry.”

A series of closed-door roundtables conducted via a guided framework formed the heart of the summit, each focusing on a key area of the fintech ecosystem. With participation from the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), Digital Economy Ministry, Port City Colombo and Board of Investment, these sessions produced actionable frameworks and KPIs to guide sectoral progress in the future. 

“It was about defining KPIs, setting targets, assigning responsibilities and giving the industry a shared direction,” de Silva explained.

Chaired by Hatton National Bank CEO Damith Pallewatte, the opening roundtable mapped Sri Lanka’s Vision 2030 for digital banking. Participants called for a national cloud policy, a bank-fintech partnership framework and progress toward a digital assets model, including CBDC research. Implementing and expanding the national digital ID for banking and payments was recognised as a key enabler of inclusion and innovation.

The second session was chaired by Channa de Silva, who is also CEO of LankaPay and the focus was on fintech innovation and financial inclusion. The participants set a national goal to reduce cash in circulation over GDP percentage from the current 4.5 percent to 3.5 percent within three years. The plan prioritises targeting high-volume areas where physical cash is in use, such as transport, utilities and SME payments while expanding digital access through agency banking via post offices and cooperatives. Participants also proposed a national trust and digital financial literacy campaign and urging the government to lead by example in digital payments adoption.

The third discussion, Regulatory Innovation – Sandbox 2.0, chaired by former CBSL Deputy Governor Dr. Ranee Jayamaha, explored how to remove bottlenecks in regulatory engagement and fast-track fintech approvals. The group urged the CBSL to publish a formal definition of ‘fintech’ and transparent guidelines and decided to establish an interim multi-regulatory committee to collate common problems raised by fintech companies and present them to the authorities, discuss issues and streamline approvals. In the long term, they agreed to lobby for a unified regulatory authority for fintech oversight.

The fourth roundtable, Harnessing Digital Assets and CBDCs, was chaired by Mastercard Sri Lanka and the Maldives Country Manager Sandun Hapugoda. It explored opportunities and challenges in digital assets, blockchain and CBDC adoption. The participants agreed that the top priority is to clearly define regulatory responsibilities, as the CBSL, Colombo Stock Exchange and Securities and Exchange Commission, each has potential roles in establishing the legal recognition and framework for digital assets. They agreed to identify viable blockchain use cases to promote and endorse the CBSL’s cautious approach to CBDCs, recommending continued research until a national use case emerges.

Chaired by former Colombo Stock Exchange CEO Rajeeva Bandaranaike, the fifth session, titled ‘Market access and international partnerships’, focused on rebuilding investor confidence and repositioning Sri Lanka’s image through a unified narrative. Participants proposed a standing industry-government forum to address investment approval bottlenecks and advocate for policy consistency and tax simplification, which are conducive to investments. 

They also discussed regional partnerships with venture funds, frontier market investment funds, and iaspora-linked venture studio models to channel new capital into Sri Lanka’s fintech ecosystem and support Lankan fintechs to expand into India and other neighbouring markets. 

The final session, chaired by Scybers Co-founder and President Madu Ratnayake, focused on cybersecurity and resilience. The participants agreed to create a Financial Sector Intelligence and Information-Sharing Framework under the CBSL’s FinCSIRT and a Security Leadership Forum to coordinate responses to emerging threats.

They highlighted the urgent need for cybersecurity talent development, proposing cross-industry CISO training and regulatory pathways for IT and risk professionals. A nationwide fraud awareness campaign, adoption of a bank.lk domain and fixed-prefix phone numbers were also recommended to protect citizens and build trust.