UBC Aims For Top 5 In Sri Lanka Banking

Chairman Nirvana Chaudhary is prepared to lead amidst a national finance crisis.

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Nirvana Chaudhary, newly appointed chairman of the Union Bank of Colombo (UBC) in Sri Lanka, has laid out a bold goal for the bank’s revival: to make it one of the top five players in Sri Lanka’s banking industry by 2026, despite a challenging landscape still reeling from the financial, economic, and political crisis it suffered in 2022.

Instead of being daunted by all these issues, however, Chaudhary even floated the idea of helping Sri Lanka overcome its financial crisis.

“Once the country gets politically stable, it wouldn’t be a big challenge to revive the economy. We aim to help overcome the cash-strapped nation’s financial crisis,” Chaudhary told Asian Banking & Finance. “We are taking a strategic growth approach to make UBC among the top private commercial banks in Sri Lanka.”

Chaudhary outlined the two factors that he says will be key to achieving this three-year goal: collaborations and their growth plan. In particular, this might involve “partnerships in collaboration with fintech companies, NBFCs and other stakeholders, which helps to innovate and expand the bank’s service offerings,” he said.