LOLC’S Bullish on Fintech
Global conglomerate LOLC Holdings PLC’S expansion into key economic growth sectors across financial services, leisure, agriculture and plantations, construction and real estate, manufacturing and trading, technology, research and innovation and strategic investments in Sri Lanka, and in the international Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector in 22 emerging markets, reflects its inspiring growth trajectory. The Group has established its reputation as one of the largest multi-currency, multigeographic inclusive finance entities in the world, backed by advanced tech platforms developed and designed by companies in the Group’s portfolio and now successfully adopted across borders.
In order to stay ahead of the game in the digital era, the LOLC Group identified that strategic focus on digital would be the main game-changer in every business it does and thus adopted a “Digital First” strategy across the organization and its subsidiaries. Being primarily a financial services conglomerate, digital first has gone beyond simple adoption of technology or digital, to investing in financial technology and Fintech companies. LOLC’S philosophy of agility, adoptability and focus has given it pioneering status within the financial services industry. LOLC has truly revolutionized Sri Lanka’s rapidly growing digital footprint, capturing the fintech landscape faster than any other local financial service provider in the industry.
Group Managing Director, LOLC Holdings PLC, Kapila Jayawardena says, “One of the reasons for the LOLC Group’s success is the early adaptation of a digital ecosystem with the ‘digital first’ principle. Our pioneering digital strategy has helped us to stay ahead of the financial services industry in Sri Lanka and overseas. As LOLC becomes a global entity with operations in 22 markets, the main driver and focus is Digital and Fintech.”
LOLC Group’s focus on technology started 20+ years ago when a subsidiary was established for ICT - LOLC Technologies Limited (formerly known as Lanka ORIX Information Technology Services Limited). Today, through this subsidiary, ICT services are extended to 22 countries in the African and Asian continents, backed by a dedicated team of local ICT professionals. The Group’s Data Centre has undergone a significant upgrade on a three-year roadmap, expanding storage capabilities with the highest performance storage devices in the enterprise market. Its new computing capabilities are truly unmatched in the region.
Continuous focus on adherence to the global standards and certifications on quality, information security and service delivery ensures that its technology is truly global and unparalleled. LOLC Technologies Limited
Conrad Dias, Chairman, LOLC Finance PLC and LOLC Technologies Limited comments, “Digital is the future! LOLC decided early on to not just digitalize but also to become a fintech investor and innovator. Through our ICT strategy and pioneering fintech solutions, LOLC is now the most agile and flexible fintech company to keep pace with changes in the local and overseas markets. Our digital transformation has given birth to many unique inspiring technology platforms. LOLC has invested heavily in technology across all sectors, especially in its financial services sector. Our main triumphs are our investments in 3 fintech platforms - Fusion X, ipay and OYES.”
ipay has been deployed in LOLC’S overseas operations, including Cambodia presently, and is scheduled to be rolled out in Nigeria, Zambia and Kenya shortly. As we witnessed rapid uptake of digital with the pandemic, which ipay also experienced in both Sri Lanka and Cambodia, we are further exploring launching in the other markets where LOLC is already present and partnering with banks and financial services companies in the markets where LOLC doesn’t have the presence. The platform focuses on the customer experience while adopting all regulatory requirements and global best practices. ipay as a super app enables the financial inclusion for the unbanked community with superior customer involvement and user-friendly interfaces to familiarize their first banking experience through a true digital platform.
Group Managing Director, LOLC Holdings PLC, Kapila Jayawardena says, “One of the reasons for the LOLC Group’s success is the early adaptation of a digital ecosystem with the ‘digital first’ principle. Our pioneering digital strategy has helped us to stay ahead of the financial services industry in Sri Lanka and overseas. As LOLC becomes a global entity with operations in 22 markets, the main driver and focus is Digital and Fintech.”
Salaries are paid monthly even though cash needs arise daily. This causes some employees to fall prey to loan sharks, to fulfil their immediate cash requirements. OYES allows monthly salary earners to unlock their salary on a daily basis. This platform uses algorithms to determine the quantum each employee can withdraw daily, based on certain parameters drawn up in partnership with the company’s human resource department. The employees can withdraw the amount through ipay by associating the OYES account, through an on-site kiosk, or by using their debit card 24/7. This digital platform has been launched and is available for all companies. In the current climate of soaring inflation and soaring cost of living, OYES can be a lifesaver for salaried employees. OYES is the first digital salary advance fintech solution in Sri Lanka, while having an immense potential in Asian and African regions.
certified by global standards in the industry include ISO 27001:2013, 9001: 2015 & 20000:2018 and additional security measures to harden the organization’s security infrastructure. Some of these are industry-firsts, adopted much later on by other banking and financial institutions. With the implementation of solutions such as the cloud security posture management, cloud workload protection and cloud-native Security Information Events Management, the Group is moving towards a cloud-based approach for business enablement.
LOLC Holdings, through its subsidiary LOLC Technologies Ltd., diversified and extended its fintech investments into several fintech platforms. The first platform group invested through LOLC Technologies was a financial services super app, ipay in 2016 which is today being rolled out globally. The second fintech platform that the company launched is OYES (Own Your Earned Salary), a platform in 2017 that is redefining the salary advance with the use of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning). Fusionx is the next generation core banking platform that the company invested in 2018 with the dawn of Open Banking.
Conrad Dias, Chairman, LOLC Finance PLC and LOLC Technologies Limited comments, “Digital is the future! LOLC decided early on to not just digitalize but also to become a fintech investor and innovator. Through our ICT strategy and pioneering fintech solutions, LOLC is now the most agile and flexible fintech company to keep pace with changes in the local and overseas markets. Our digital transformation has given birth to many unique inspiring technology platforms. LOLC has invested heavily in technology across all sectors, especially in its financial services sector. Our main triumphs are our investments in 3 fintech platforms - Fusion X, ipay and OYES.”
Financial Super App, “ipay”
ipay the financial super app is an ecosystem of features and services that are personalized around the users and fulfilling their financial service needs. The platform facilitates customer centric user experience in opening digital savings accounts, digital fixed deposits or investment accounts and managing the same without physically visiting the bank branch. The super app enables true digital experience in the financial services space and goes far beyond just facilitation of merchant and utility payments while bringing lifestyle value to the consumers. On the other side of the platform, merchants enjoy immense value with more value creation opportunities to reach a wider audience. ipay’s advertising and marketplace feature enables merchants to enter into online shopping space with their products and services with no additional investment.
ipay has been deployed in LOLC’S overseas operations, including Cambodia presently, and is scheduled to be rolled out in Nigeria, Zambia and Kenya shortly. As we witnessed rapid uptake of digital with the pandemic, which ipay also experienced in both Sri Lanka and Cambodia, we are further exploring launching in the other markets where LOLC is already present and partnering with banks and financial services companies in the markets where LOLC doesn’t have the presence. The platform focuses on the customer experience while adopting all regulatory requirements and global best practices. ipay as a super app enables the financial inclusion for the unbanked community with superior customer involvement and user-friendly interfaces to familiarize their first banking experience through a true digital platform.
ipay has proved its glory not only with its capabilities, features, functionality and global adoption, but also with both local and global recognitions and awards. Locally it is by far the most awarded platform in the market – with 5 gold awards won at the recently concluded Lankapay Technovation Awards 2022 by LOLC Finance, as the business partner of ipay in Sri Lanka. ipay is one of the first fintech applications to be certified for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCIDSS). ipay super app is driven by continuous focus on innovation and building unparallel customer experience while ensuring adequate security for customer data and adhering to the necessary compliance Needs.
Own Your Earned Salary, OYES
Trail-blazing its Fintech innovation to resolve challenges faced by people, LOLC Tech forged ahead with the launch of Own Your Earned Salary or OYES. This platform is yet another unique fintech and technologydriven product designed to solve a problem for salaried employees. OYES, removes the burden off employers in salary advance processing and settlement process. The platform has enabled Zero reconciliation approach which eliminates manual intervention on salary advance granting and settlements.
Salaries are paid monthly even though cash needs arise daily. This causes some employees to fall prey to loan sharks, to fulfil their immediate cash requirements. OYES allows monthly salary earners to unlock their salary on a daily basis. This platform uses algorithms to determine the quantum each employee can withdraw daily, based on certain parameters drawn up in partnership with the company’s human resource department. The employees can withdraw the amount through ipay by associating the OYES account, through an on-site kiosk, or by using their debit card 24/7. This digital platform has been launched and is available for all companies. In the current climate of soaring inflation and soaring cost of living, OYES can be a lifesaver for salaried employees. OYES is the first digital salary advance fintech solution in Sri Lanka, while having an immense potential in Asian and African regions.
Composability to embrace change, Fusionx
Fusionx is a digital first core banking solution focusing on mobile and cloud first approach. Fusionx empowers users to deliver innovative financial solutions to customers. LOLC entities in four countries are using Fusionx, the next generation banking system as their core banking application, while two more markets are in the process of migrating to Fusionx. The current legacy banking systems are designed for paper-based money movement, but today systems are changing to face a digital world in the metaverse. Fusionx technology brings the First Principles of design to drive efficiencies in a digitalised era as the core banking system that is digital first designed for the cloud with cloud-native architecture. The platform also adopts a mobile and security first user experience. Traditionally, security has been more or less an afterthought, but Fusionx embeds information security in the design itself. Composability of the system is one of the core philosophies in designing the architecture of Fusionx. As a result, Fusionx is fully geared for open banking, which is useful for both larger and smaller banks. The agility of Fusionx enables LOLC entities to develop new products and solutions with quick go-to-market approaches, unlike any other legacy system.
Further, its API first nature promotes agility and faster connectivity with other eco systems, thereby facilitating innovations. This enhances the business entities to design products and services with the best technology available in the local or global context. Fusionx is a real-time system as opposed to batch processing which is a traditional method. It offers flexible and highly customisable templates for creating individual products, allowing organizations to categorise, advertise, sort and compare deposit types using easyto-recognise names that customers can quickly understand.
Reflecting global standards and international acceptability, LOLC Tech has further provided a mobile platform to LOLC Microfinance Bank, in Pakistan. The mobile platform facilitates business development officers on customer on-boarding and credit appraisals on customers’ premises. The solution is also integrated with verification services, such as biometric verification to transform the overall business development force in to a mobile first system. This platform has brought a transparent and efficient loan processing system into LOLC Microfinance Bank while transforming the organization culture into more digital focus internal process. This has contributed immensely to improve customer satisfaction while providing more efficient service levels.
As a digital focused global conglomerate and pioneering Fintech, LOLC will continue to invest in emerging and groundbreaking business technologies. As the world is speedily entering the age of Web3 and the metaverse, witnessing evolving new business models in the virtual economy with decentralised finance, the Group is evaluating a few start-up investments in progression.