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People’s Bank wins Brand of the Year award

People’s Bank won the coveted Brand of the Year award in recognition of its services towards taking banking to Sri Lanka and its people at the SLIM Brand Excellence 2009.

At the award ceremony

People’s Bank demonstrated again why it is regarded as a well loved and most successful brand in Sri Lanka when it won the award together with Gold in the Service Brand of the Year category, showing that the bank had graduated to the realm of a mega brand that has not only captured the local market but also integrates social responsibility as part and parcel of its make up in uplifting the lives of Sri Lanka’s people.

The award recognized People’s Bank’s marketing and brand management prowess and consumer acceptance as reflected in service achievements.

People’s Bank also showcased its CSR projects it has undertaken over the years - such as offering young scholars the chance to attend university on scholarships, empowering the women and the elderly of the country, offering flexible loan schemes for housing and other needs, offering the convenience of Palmtop banking and the ease of money transfer, as well as a discrete, yet convenient gold pawning services, its farmer and entrepreneur upliftings program together with its disaster assistance and other such corporate philanthropy projects.

People’s Bank does not help those in the direst of times, but also in day to day business through Micro Finance Loans and small and medium enterprise loans to help the smaller entrepreneurs of the country. In addition to which, these loans go a long way towards the development of the country and its commercial success.

People’s Bank Chairman W. Karunajeewa said, “The awards were a true celebration of many of the country’s highest profile brands.

We are happy that the People’s Bank was voted ‘Brand of the Year’ together with Service Brand of the Year as it scored the highest points amongst all the brands.

We replicated the same passion, dedication and attention to detail that we display in competing in the marketplace when we had to showcase these successes to the Brand Excellence jury. To win this accolade is a powerful endorsement and evidence for existing customers, potential customers, the media, suppliers, investors and employees of People’s Bank’s exceptional status.

Our marketing and promotional activity, brand innovations and service achievements spoke for themselves.

“We have thus been able to win multiple awards year after year.”

The bank has improved its image and bring banking to everyone.

This has resulted in People’s Bank receiving multiple awards over the past few years, including the People’s Choice for “Bank of the Year” for three consecutive years and the People’s Choice for “Best Service Brand”, as well as being rated AA- by Brand Finance Rating, the highest in the Banking and Finance category.

Vision Care Optical Services goes to Galle

Vision Care Optical Services (Pvt.) Ltd opened its newest branch in Galle at Magalle recently.

“The new premises, on the outskirts of Galle town have a spacious parking facility and anyone can come to buy spectacles in a relaxing atmosphere,” said Vision Care CEO Dashantha R. Fonseka.

Vision Care Chief Executive Officer Dashantha R. Fonseka with the Chief Guest Kasun Rajapakshe open the new branch at Magalle.

The company is not only targeting the high end market segment. It has a range of products varying from the cheapest to the high ends inclusive of a collection of world renowned designer brands. The Corporate Office at Ward Place has the entire range of eye related testing facilities including an eye care pharmacy and several other high tech testing facilities.

Vision Care Pvt. Ltd., is a ISO certified optical services company.

Vision Care also has many “firsts” in the country which also include; Biometry (Eye scan for IOLs), Visual Field Machines and the country’s first OCT, GDX, Pascal IOP, CCT machines.

The company already has several branches in and around Colombo and in few other towns around the country. It already has centres at the Asiri Central hospital, Crescat Boulevard, Norris clinic and Sulaiman hospital while its corporate office cum an “optical Mall” is situated in Colombo 7.

In 1999, Vision Care opened its first branch out of Colombo, in Kurunegala and now has branches in Ratnapura, Wennappuwa, Jaela and Kurunegala. Vision Care introduced new technologies to the Eye Care industry in Sri Lanka. It is sure to keep up with the fast developing world by improving its service standards, products and technologies in the Optical business. It also introduced the Carl Zeiss Optical Coherance Tomographer (OCT III) for the first time in Sri Lanka to service its valued customers.

Vision Care has its own Eye Care Pharmacy in the same premises for all eye care medicinal requirements.

Sampath Bank in ATM partnership with BoC and Union Bank

Sampath Bank created new dimensions for technology driven banking in Sri Lanka, when unveiled the first ever Automated Teller Machine in 1987. Sampath Bank has introduced many novelties to the banking and financial services industry.

The initial ATM which came in to operation in 1987 had only basic facilities such as cash withdrawal, balance inquiry and fund transfer.

A Sampath Bank outlet

The Sampath Bank ATMs handles many advanced transactions such as third party bill payment facilities, statement printing and on-line real-time cash depositing facilities with cash recognizing features. All these transactions can be carried out by simply inserting VISA debit card or Sampath Bank credit cards.

The computerized set up offers language choice and simple step by step instructions to carry out each and every transaction. The Sampath Bank ATMs also allow a higher ceiling for cash withdrawals at Rs. 80,000 per day while sophisticated technology is used to ensure maximum standards of security, complying with VISA and Master International standards.

Providing uninterrupted customer convenience at all times, Sampath Bank holds a “Zero Down Time” policy on their ATMs. This policy enhances the reliability of the Sampath Bank ATMs with 24x7 availability. All the ATMs under the Sampath Bank network are monitored round the clock for system failures and breakdowns, by the operations team who are always on call with back up services.

Sampath Bank has moved to an ATM sharing partnership with Bank of Ceylon and Union Bank, thus providing a much larger network and access points to customers of banks with 514 ATMs to date. Sampath Bank has already initiated discussion on sharing ATM networks with other banks as well.

The Sampath Bank ATM network is well connected through over one million ATMs of Master international in 210 countries and over 1.2 million ATMs of VISA network in 170 countries, providing one of the widest spread ATM networks.

In 2003, Sampath Bank took another step forward in the banking and financial services industry by introducing the Drive-Through ATM.

This was an extension to their Off-Site ATM network which was introduced to provide customers with easy access to their bank account, even when a bank branch was not in the locality.