People’s Bank drives digitalisation with landmark -300th Digital Branch

The People’s Bank, opening its 300th Digital Branch recently, continues its trend of achieving remarkable milestones in the bank’s digitalisation journey. By the end of 2019, all 348 People’s Bank branches would be converted into digital enabled branches.

The bank’s revolutionary efforts in introducing digital banking paved the way for customers, to go on to record 500,000 digital customers islandwide.

One of the key products in this process of digital transformation has been ‘People’s Wiz’ (Digital on Boarding), a solution that has transformed the traditional mechanism of visiting a bank to open a bank account, the bank said in a media release.

People’s Wiz offers customers a platform where they can open a bank account digitally, with a completely paperless mechanism. For this paperless process, which is carried out entirely with digital devices, People’s Bank staff either visit customers with a tablet or wait for their pre-scheduled arrival at the branch. A customer has to simply show the NIC to the digital agent to get the process started. All information, including information made mandatory by the guidelines issued by the Central Bank, along with a photograph and e-signature of the customer, is stored safely and securely. The system immediately creates the account and issues an activated debit card. A number of activities then take place along with the debit card activation, in just 10 minutes’ duration.

Once a customer is on-board, he is greeted with a special digital welcome pack, sent through email. Behind-the-screen, another set of activities are carried out simultaneously, including activating Internet Banking facility, sending a text message to the customer’s mobile phone with account details, storing supporting documents, activating the People’s Wave mobile app, People’s Web Internet banking facility, SMS alert Registration and an e- statement facility. Once the debit card has been issued, Card less Cash facility and Mobile

Cash facility will be activated automatically. A customer can then visit a cash deposit machine ( CDM) to deposit money into the account, upon which a text message will inform him/ her about the deposit. Furthermore, if he/ she wants to open an additional account, such as a Current Account, this will take place instantly.

Mangala Kariyawasam - Chief Manager of Digital Banking at People’s Bank said: “The days of filling multiple forms and standing in lengthy queues are over thanks to the end- to- end digitalised process being established by the People’s Bank. While it is a process of simplicity and convenience, what is even more useful is the fact that this process can be conducted anywhere you reside, whether you’re at home, workplace, abroad and of course, at a People’s Bank branch. We have specially trained and equipped over 1,200 digital agents islandwide and that has contributed massively in making this digitalisation process a huge success.”