Renuka Tennekoon, Director General Board of Investments (BOI), Maneesha De Silva, Senior Deputy Manager IT, CDB; Dave De Silva, Director Business Operations, CDB; Shabni Mohideen Manager, Business Operations, CDB with Sundari Jayasuriya, Senior Advisor to the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Sri Lanka.
In line with its constant strive to innovate and stay relevant to its valuable customers, Citizens Development Business Finance PLC (CDB) was recently crowned as the National Winner for the ‘Most Innovative Global Business Service/BPM’ at the National Ingenuity Awards 2022, hosted by Sri Lanka Association for Software and Services Companies (SLASSCOM).
CDB’s pioneering lending process automation project was the initiative that won at the awards ceremony, which was held on July 1.
The launch of this revolutionary initiative made headway in the financial services industry in Sri Lanka as an end-to-end credit facility granting process became automated with limited human intervention. CDB’s Business Operations Executive Director Dave De Silva said, “We at CDB highly value and encourage thinking beyond traditional boundaries and embracing change. The fact that we secured this title stands as a testament to the success of our efforts. Due to this process automation, we have bypassed the entire branch network and given our team to work from anywhere and any day of the year, thereby, giving our valued customers a superior service while adhering to all compliance guidelines.
Granting a quick and accurate credit decision is our goal and with the lending process automation project, over 70% of our credit decisions are granted at machine speed. This has enabled us to redeploy resources including excess staff for process within the organisation, created a paperless working environment to a great extent and limit the movement of our sales team to the branches which contributes towards our tech disruption and sustainability strategy”.