National Development Bank organises nonfinancial service Araliya forum in Anuradhapura

As a part of its strategy, NDB is dedicated to empowering women through various strategies via NDB Araliya to provide non-financial services such as workshops and forums that are specialised offerings focusing on empowering, educating and uplifting the Sri Lankan woman.

Accordingly, a non-financial service forum organised by the NDB Anuradhapura branch and the regional office jointly with the NDB Araliya team was held in Anuradhapura targeting female entrepreneurs who are beauticians in Sri Lanka.

The forum participants gained the first-hand experience and knowledge of renowned beautician Nayana Karunaratna who shared her insights and advice on topics related to beauty culture and development.

“NDB Araliya” is the bundled solution package offered with the intention of easing off the pain points and providing effective solutions to achieve the goals of aspiring females. The bundle is an extension of NDB’S savings product dedicated to aspiring females, which was launched in 2017 and is a direct result of NDB’S Banking on Women strategic initiative, which is another core strategic pillar of the bank’s 2020 strategy. Araliya is a market research backed initiative which addresses a market void hence yields distinct competitive advantage for NDB.

NDB’S bundled offer comprises loan facilities, overdraft facilities and credit card facilities, in addition to the savings product. Added benefits are branded debit and credit cards, business loans available for a wide range of purposes such as inventory financing, capital expenditure and business instalment loans, salary advance loans, salary transfers to employee accounts, and more.

Araliya saving product also addresses the need for family protection via a special insurance cover for the Araliya account holder, family or business.

The initiative addresses a vast array of needs of each of the women’s segment such as financial support for business growth and financial security for the business and self in the entrepreneur category, efficient and time effective banking services and financial prosperity for salaried women and financial support for the family and ensuring family well-being for the female home-makers.

Araliya is NDB’S response to promote gender equality in access to quality financing in the Sri Lankan banking sector. It also actively promotes financial inclusion amongst needy and marginalised females spread across the country.

NDB Araliya often partners with the bank’s CSR initiatives carried out targeting females, such as personal grooming sessions, business knowledge, technical skills sharing sessions and more. No other bank offers such a fullyfledged offering targeting the female segment hence NDB has been able to secure competitive advantage in the women’s market with this initiative.

NDB will be conducting more such non-financial services throughout the year for women empowerment.