Page 43 - CPM Sri Lanka-Chartered Manager-Sept. 2021
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THE INSTITUTE OF CHARTERED PROFESSIONAL MANAGERS OF SRI LANKA
JANUARY 2021
In this interview with ‘Chartered Manager’ Journal, How do you see these services supporting the
Mr. Bingumal Thewarathanthri, talks about wider ecosystem envisioned at Port City
opportunities for the financial services sector, encompassing trade, logistics, corporate
particularly offshore banking of Port City Colombo. headquarters etc?
Mr. Thewarathanthri is the Chief Executive Officer, In Port City, the medium of exchange would be US
Sri Lanka / Head of CCIB Client Coverage of Standard Dollars or any major foreign currency and that will
Chartered Bank, Sri Lanka. In this interview, he offers protect the businesses from currency depreciation
insights drawn from his expertise and experience; and monetary instability. We believe that the Port
The Port City Colombo Economic Commission City will hub many Regional Treasury Centres (RTCs)
Act envisages the establishment of offshore and procurement centres in future. In that context,
banks within the Area of Authority of the having full offshore banking services will support
Port City Colombo. Would these entities be areas such as regional liquidity management,
able to offer a wider array of services than inter-company funding, receivable services and
foreign banks currently offer in Sri Lanka? seamless cross-border payments. There will also be
opportunities to do commodity trading, derivatives
The premise of offshore banking is the deposit and setting up of various funds. Depending on how
of funds by either a company or an individual in Sri Lanka connects with the rest of the world with
a bank which is situated outside their national DTAAs (Double Tax Avoidance Agreements), IPPs
residence. (Investor Protection and Promotion) and Trade
treaties, offshore banking in the Port City should
According to the draft law for Port City, offshore be able to offer a range of products to support the
banking units may accept savings, fixed potential offshore companies.
demand deposits or lend to any authorised
person or a non-resident in any designated It is understood that these offshore banks would
foreign currency. predominantly serve the regional markets.
Why would they do so from Sri Lanka as
The success of this service depends on the opposed to setting up elsewhere in the
framework that Port City comes up with for region?
offshore banking. If the framework is similar to Though there are multiple hubs around us, we
some of the other IFCs (International Financial believe Sri Lanka has a business case for:
Centres), the offshore units in the Port City will
be able to facilitate many transactions that a. Corporates that are already in South Asia but
are currently not permitted in Sri Lanka under managing the region from a different time
normal banking services. Therefore, offshore zone.
banking in the Port City will have an edge b. Corporates that are significantly large in India
against onshore banking since it will not be and looking at de-risking some part of it.
governed under the current exchange control
regulations. c. New entities that are established in South
Asia; Sri Lanka to act as a gateway to the
sub-continent.
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