Echelon Magazine - July 2021

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Who will build the banks of tomorrow?

Sri Lankan banks are in a position of strength - or so it appears. No big bank has failed and as a result they are trusted more than fintechs who wish to compete with them. Most people also don’t know what to make of fintechs or how to use them. However banks are also failing to harness the opportunity that digital technology now presents.

Many bankers seem convinced that onerous regulations would protect them from the challenge and that regulators, fearful of competition destabilising the sector, will make it difficult for fintechs to gain significant market share. This has left Sri Lankan retail banks behind in innovation compared to ones in parts of Asia and Europe where regulators have allowed fintechs and tech giants to compete.

Bankers fear competition and regulators its destabilising effect, because incumbent banks will lose their footing on customer data and relationships. Once their sole possession and advantage, customer data and relationships will become fair game for fintechs and big tech firms which, unlike banks, will operate a balance-sheet-light business model, earning revenue not by recycling deposits into new loans, but by offering services. Fintechs and bigtech will spend heavily on data analytics to understand customer spending to cross-sell more effectively.

Few would have bet on state controlled People’s Bank emerging as a leader in digital banking. Nothing about People’s Bank’s position today suggests that it has won out on innovation, but a product's success is adoption and People’s Bank’s apps and online banking are successful by this measure.

Banks in the future will create more value from data. People’s Bank, one of the country’s oldest, is surprisingly up to the challenge.

Echelon Magazine Description:

Intelligent Storytelling

The one thing that will define the Echelon magazine will be the quality of the storytelling. Echelon,published monthly, will cover in depth Sri Lanka’s most successful businesses, examine their winning strategiesand profile their leaders in immersive stories. Great stories are also never limited to words, and our approach includes rich photography, bold graphics and leading edge design which together will make for a compelling read.

But business doesn’t start and end in a boardroom;it extends to the golf club greens, to international travel and to pursuits that blurthe lines between commercial venture and sheer passion. The Echelon team will present the best in business and lifestyle coverage that will appeal to an exclusive and affluent readership: an otherwise hard to reach demographic.

Content will be developed by one of the most experienced and proven teams of editors, financial journalists, photographers and designers in the country.This team has already raised the bar for powerful and expertly crafted business news. Shamindra Kulamannage, will lead the editorial team.

The reputation of Echelon is being built on the separation between editorial and advertising. However we are also looking for the most creative and impactful new formats that can be applied in our magazines, iPad app as well as website to help our clients reach our audience. We are flexible and creative and we will have a solution for every single advertiser who wants to reach our audience.

We are passionate about creative results and about working with our advertisers to help them create bespoke multi platform creative solutions with our in house creative team and of course our sales team.

Echelon will be a great place to show off the products and capabilities of our clients because they will be surrounded by an editorial product that is expertly crafted, full of integrity and intelligence.