Janaka De Silva

Janaka de Silva holds a B.Sc., (Ceylon) and an M.B.A. (Sri Jayawardenapura). He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka), the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and the Institute of Bankers of Sri Lanka. Mr. de Silva was a Senior Accountant of the State Engineering Corporation during 1970 to 1972 and was the Finance Manager at Building Material Corporation during 1972 to 1973. He also served as a Lecturer/Accountant at Indeco Ltd, Lusaka, Zambia from 1973 -1976. In 1976, Mr. de Silva joined Bank of Ceylon as the Assistant General Manager/Controller and was elevated to the position of Corporate Advisor and set up the IT function which was the largest IT facility in the country by the end of 1985. He introduced computerized banking with central processing and multipoint access to Sri Lanka. He was the head of the Audit function, conducting the internal audits of over 200 branch offices throughout the country. Further, he introduced new techniques such as statistical sampling. He was also a member of the Steering Committee created to set up the Automated Clearing House of Sri Lanka. In 1987, Mr. de Silva joined Sampath Bank and was the founder General Manager/CEO. He made the bank the most technologically advanced financial institution with all branches connected online for the first time in Sri Lanka. He was the first to introduce credit cards with a major international franchise and a multipoint ATM network. He pioneered many new innovations such as extended banking hours, interest on daily balance on Savings Accounts, and the use of UV lights for signature verification.