"The improvements to the CITS and SLIPS clearing systems will enhance the efficiency of the payments industry in Sri Lanka by serving all sectors of the economy to support the higher growth path of post-war Sri-Lanka."

The Cheque Clearing System (Cheque Image and Truncation System (CITS)) and SLIPS (Sri Lanka Interbank Payment System) are two major Payment Systems in Sri Lanka. As the owner and operator of these two Payment Systems, LankaClear is committed to their continuous efficiency improvements in order to better serve the public.

As such, LankaClear has continuously enhanced the Cheque Clearing System to meet the market growth and to create greater efficiency in order to better serve the public. In order to achieve this, the IT Infrastructure was upgraded to cutting edge technology and enhancements were made to the software systems. As a result, LankaClear was able to extend the cheque submission time to 7:00 p.m. and thus facilitating the Banks to extend their cheque deposit cutoff times. This was effective from 1st April 2011. Also the Settlement Clearing cycle has been enhanced, and thus cheque return data is provided to the Banks by 1:30 p.m., enabling them to release funds to their customers within the Banking hours on T+1. This efficiency improvement was made possible by the data transmission for the Settlement Clearing cycle being online and with digital signatures for greater security and this went live on 14th Mar 2011. Further to these benefits to the end customer, the Disaster Recovery (DR) capabilities have been greatly improved creating a more reliable cheque clearing system.

Another notable achievement was the launch of the Enhanced SLIPS System in September 2010. This is the first paperless, online and highly secure retail clearing system that connects all Commercial Banks via the LankaClear VPN (Virtual Private Network) with end to end digital signing. The enhanced SLIPS system was primarily implemented to cater for higher volumes that are expected due to rapid economic growth and to facilitate same day clearing (T+0) and thus enabling customers to get good value for fund transfers on the same day. There has been good growth in SLIPS transaction volumes and around 32% annual growth was seen in 2010. Also, with the introduction of same day clearing (T+0), we have observed that the third party customer transfer volumes have increased.

One of the key enablers that contributed to the above enhancements was the PKI infrastructure managed by LankaClear under the brand name LankaSign. LankaSign provided the digital certificates and the PKI infrastructure required for the digital signing of the electronic data transmitted via the LankaClear VPN to achieve the highest level of security.

The above improvements to the clearing systems were made to enhance the efficiency of payments industry in Sri Lanka to serve all sectors of the economy to support the higher growth path of post-war Sri Lanka.