The core business of the bank will be remittances. It intends to increase the level of remittances to Sterling Pounds 5 million a month from its current 3 million within a year, reported Daily News.

“Now we can conduct normal banking services and this will be the only bank representing Sri Lanka that is fully-owned by Bank of Ceylon. With the limited functions that were carried out as a branch, we are now in a position to engage in lending. This will be a real benefit to the Sri Lankans,” said BoC Chairman Dr Gamini Wickramasinghe.

“The bank plans to leverage London operations coordinating with other EU countries including Italy, Germany and France with further plans to cover the US, Canada, Australasia, Japan and Korea to make this as an international bank,” he said.

The BoC will focus on regional countries such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and will consolidate the operations in Maldives and Bangladesh to expand the branch network.

“We need to generate new businesses and looking at housing and business loans to generate funds. We have a fully fledged ATM network to link any ATM in the banking system and will engage in more Internet related banking services. The bank will provide facilities to make remittances from major banks through the BoC UK bank to Sri Lanka free, the Chairman said.

Internet banking will be a major feature and total banking facilities will be provided with this facility.

“We will be offering higher interest rates to our customers to encourage Sri Lankans in UK and Europe to patronize our services. People can invest in our capital market through BoC UK bank where the bank acts as a bridge building closer relationship, Dr. Wickramasinghe said.

The UK bank will also introduce local financial products such as Infinity Retirement plan and NRFC Children’s accounts to attract more funds.