APB – Sri Lanka holds 31st Annual General Meeting
The 31st Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Association of Professional Bankers (APB) – Sri Lanka was held on July 24, 2020, at Bougainvillea Ballroom, Galadari Hotel.
It was held on a hybrid basis, where a large number of APB members attended the meeting physically, abiding the prevailing health and social distancing guidelines whilst another set of members attended the meeting virtually as well.
The AGM was held based on the expert advice received by the APB on holding of a hybrid AGM after the indefinite postponement of the initially scheduled AGM in March 2020, due to the COVID19 lockdown.
At this AGM, the APB members elected the office bearers and the council members for the year 2020/21. Accordingly, Aruna Fernando was elected as the 32nd President of this premier association of the bankers in the country.
Fernando counts nearly 32 years of experience in the banking industry, having started his career at Commercial Bank in October 1988, at the young age of 19 years, just after his school education at Mahanama College, Colombo 3.
Fernando is an expert in bank risk management and was part of the team that set up the Integrated Risk Management Department at Commercial Bank. He joined Seylan Bank PLC in May 2013 as Assistant General Manager Credit Risk and was appointed as Seylan Bank’s Acting Chief Risk Officer in
September 2018.
Fernando holds a Master of Business Administration Degree from the Postgraduate Institute of Management, University of Sri Jayewardenepura and is currently reading for a Master of Financial Economics degree from the University of Colombo.
Also, another important feature of the AGM was the launch of the book titled ‘Three Decades of Professional Banking Excellence: Association of Professional Bankers – Sri Lanka (APB) (1988 -2018)’, which was compiled by Dr. Viruli de Silva, based on the reminiscences of Founder Member, Past President and Advisory Council Member A. Kathiravellupillai.