Incentivising Sri Lankan expatriates to remit their hard-earned foreign currency earnings securely back to their families and loved ones, Sri Lanka’s No.1 Bank, Bank of Ceylon (BOC) is announcing third season of its unique ‘Pita Pita Rata Thegi’ promotion in offering the expatriates to win back-to-back valuable gifts in daily, weekly and monthly draws including a grand price a Luxury Villa worth Rs.30 million.

The third edition of BOC’s ‘Pita Pita Rata Thegi’ promotion presents Sri Lankan expatriates with multiple opportunities to win valuable gifts unlike any other in the industry. On a daily basis, 365 lucky winners will be awarded with Rs. 10,000 worth Gifts vouchers from leading supermarkets while 48 lucky remitters stand to win Rs. 100,000 worth of Gift vouchers for home appliances each week. In monthly draw, 75 lucky participants stand a chance to win gold coins and finally, Rs.30 million worth Luxury Villa is on the cards in Grand Draw.

Over the years, BOC has able to gain wide popularity among thousands of Sri Lankan expatriates for its highest market exchange rates, unparalleled benefits and for its cutting edge digital products in far exceeding the benefits and services offered. In supporting Sri Lankan expatriates to achieve their life-goals with their hard-earned foreign currency earnings, the Bank is also engaged in initiatives to enhance financial literacy of Sri Lankan expats while encouraging them to save and manage their earnings efficiently.

The BOC’s Smart Remit facility remains as the most popular digital money transfer service among Sri Lankan expats since its inception in 2013. Over the years, this facility has enabled Sri Lankans living abroad to reduce the transactional costs with its range of facilities and benefits as BOC continues to update and upgrade with latest technological developments. In 2021, BOC upgraded its Smart Remit facility enabling Sri Lankan expats to conduct real time remittance transfers more securely.

In addition, BOC has also enabled internet banking with its BOC B-App while offering a VISA international debit card free of charge to its customers in allowing BOC’s overseas account holders to check their account balances online, conduct fund transfers, make utility bill payments and to fulfill a wide range of banking needs online from anywhere in the world.

As a result of these pioneering initiatives backed by its service excellence, BOC was able to increase its remittance inflows by 29 percent in 2021 over the previous year while simultaneously increasing its market leadership in remittance inflows to 41 percent. This enabled the Bank to support the country with uninterrupted import of essential goods including petroleum, gas, vaccinations for COVID-19 and food items during 2019 and 2021.

The bank provides extensive financial support package to Sri Lankan expats in different stages of their foreign employment such as pre-departure financing. BOC’s pre-departure loan schemes are intended to cover basic costs involved in the migrating process of migrant employment seekers. It has eased the financial burden on them while allowing them to pursue their dream employment opportunity.

In order to in-calculate the habit of saving among Sri Lankan expats, BOC pioneered in introducing Non-Resident Foreign Currency Accounts (NRFC) account which gained wide popularity among Sri Lankan migrant workers as it offered the security and the best market interest rates along with an array of other benefits.

Following the decision of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) to convert NRFC, RFC, and NRNNFC as Personal Foreign Currency (PFC) Account allowing Banks to offer enhanced benefits to account holders, BOC moved swiftly to offer wide-range of additional benefits under PFC to its loyal customers. With the new initiative Sri Lankan migrant workers and their close family members are eligible to open a PFC Account with BOC that can be maintained as a current, saving or fixed-deposit account. As another novel initiative to maximize benefits to its PFC account holders, BOC has also moved to extend the cover of three insurance schemes for them.

In addition, BOC was also quick to introduce the high-interest bearing SDAs to its customers when the CBSL announced the SDAs ensuring highest interest rates and a hassle-free experience when opening a SDA with BOC, with the minimum documentation requirement for both Resident and non-Resident Sri Lankans.

Taking step further to support Sri Lankan migrant workers overseas, BOC has deployed 24 Business Promotion Officers (BPOs) in several countries which are popular Sri Lankan foreign employment destinations, including key Middle Eastern countries and South Korea.

Over the years, BOC has built a strong network of over 1000 partners consisting of foreign banks, exchange houses and money exchange service providers, becoming the top Sri Lankan banking entity with the largest partner network for money transactions. As a result of this wide-spread network, BOC PFC account holders are able to send and deposit their foreign currency to BOC from anywhere in the world.