Business

Amãna Bank Board fortified by four versatile directors

Published

6 years ago

2020/09/5

Experienced chartered accountant Tishan Subasinghe, fintech entrepreneur Omar Kassim, legal luminary Mohamed Adamaly and Islamic finance legal professional Paul Mercer recently joined the Board of Directors of Amãna Bank.

The appointment of Omar Kassim is in the interest of the Bank’s former chairman Osman Kassim, who retired after completing the maximum 9 year period of directorship of a Licensed Commercial Bank as per CBSL directions, but continues to be amongst the top 10 shareholders of the Bank. Tishan Subsasinghe replaces retired senior director Jazri Magdon Ismail who also retired after completing the regulatory 9 year period while Mohamed Adamaly was appointed as the replacement to Harsha Amarasekera PC who resigned from the Board in the beginning of 2020 in lieu of his imminent retirement having served the board since its inception. Paul Mercer’s appointment fills the vacant position of the second nominee director from ICD, the Bank’s strategic shareholder. While Tishan Subasinghe will function as a Non-Executive Independent Director, the trio of Omar Kassim, Mohamed Adamaly and Paul Mercer will serve as Non-Executive Non-Independent Directors.

Commenting on their appointment the Bank’s chairman Asgi Akbarally said “We are honoured to have our Board of Directors strengthened by four versatile directors in Tishan Subasinghe, Omar Kassim, Mohamed Adamaly and Paul Mercer. Their collective experience and business insight will be of valuable benefit in guiding the Bank towards achieving its strategic goals.”

Tishan Harendranath Subasinghe, is a Fellow and Council Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka) and the Managing Director and Joint Managing Partner of Moore Stephens Consulting (Private) Limited and Moore Stephens Aiyar respectively. Before that he was the Head of Audit and Assurance at BDO Partners. He is also the chairman of Sanasa General Insurance Company Limited and is also a Council Member of the University of Moratuwa. His profession also expands overseas where he had work experience with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Botswana spanning several years. These were supported by the international training that he has undergone in USA, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Malaysia, Indonesia and Rome. As a member of CA Sri Lanka, Tishan has served as the chairman of the Annual Report Awards Committee, National Conference Committee and Examinations Committee. He also held the post of Vice President of the Young Chartered Accountants Forum (YCAF). Tishan is a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA-USA) and has an MBA in Finance by the University of Colombo with a Gold Medal and has earned an LLB (Hons.) degree from the Buckinghamshire New University. He is also a visiting lecturer at several government universities and had also conducted international training in Maldives and Bhutan.

Omar Kassim is a fintech focused technology entrepreneur, who specialises in conceiving, building, and exiting interesting technology ventures. Omar is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Nomod, a London headquartered startup building a highly efficient, scalable, business banking platform to empower millions of entrepreneurs and startups around the world to start and grow their businesses with inventive payment and banking tools. Omar also Co-Founded and was the Chief Executive Officer of Esanjo, a trading, investment, and technology business based in Dubai, where he remains a member of the Board. Omar previously founded and exited JadoPado, a highly regarded e-commerce technology platform addressing the Middle East, North African, and South Asia. Omar holds a BsC in Electronics Engineering and Business Studies from the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom.

Mohamed Adamaly is a leading legal professional in Sri Lanka having a wide Civil Law practice in the Original Courts and Appellate Courts, with a focus on Commercial Law, Labour Law, Insurance Law, and Banking & Credit related laws. Adamaly also specializes in Investment Advisory, Business Set-up/Restructuring Services and Corporate Acquisitions. Adamaly graduated from the Faculty of Law University of Colombo with Honours while also achieving First Class Honours from the Sri Lanka Law College before being admitted as an Attorney-at-law of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka in 1994. Adamaly has served as a visiting lecture at the University of Colombo and at the Sri Lanka Law College. He also holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM UK) and is a leading lecture for CIM and formerly for CIMA, in Sri Lanka. Due to his vast legal expertise coupled with his business acumen, Adamaly holds and has held directorships in several public and private companies including in the David Peiris Group, Bogala Graphite Lanka PLC, Assetline Leasing Company Limited and Sinwa Holdings Limited. Adamaly is also a leading thespian in the country and has received the National TOYP Award for his contribution to Drama and Literature.

Paul Mercer is an English law qualified lawyer with over 20 years of experience working in banking, particularly in Islamic Finance. Paul has extensive experience in corporate governance and has used his skills and experience as a Director on a number of boards representing the Kuwait Finance House Group. Paul was the Chairman of Bahrain Investment Bank, Ibdar Bank, and as Chairman of the Board, he oversaw a three-way bank merger involving Elaf Bank, Capital Management House and Capivest. In recent years Paul has been actively engaged on Islamic Banking regulation in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and the implementation of capital and governance requirements. While working as a lawyer in private practice and as in-house legal counsel at Kuwait Finance House (Bahrain), Paul has advised on a full range of legal issues relating to Islamic Finance and helped in the preparation of transactional documentation designed to comply with Islamic Law. Paul is a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and is registered as an arbitrator on the GCC Commercial Arbitration Centre Roster of Arbitrators.

With the recent appointments Amãna Bank Board of Directors constitute as follows : Ali Asghar (Asgi) Akbarally (Chairman), Rajiv Nandlal Dvivedi, Pradeep Dilshan Rajeeva Hettiaratchi, Aaron Russell-Davison, Mohammed Ataur Rahman Chowdhury, Syed Muhammed Asim Raza, Khairul Muzamel Perera bin Abdullah, Tishan Harendranath Subasinghe, Omar Kassim, Mohamed Adamaly and Paul Mercer. Retired directors Osman Kassim, Tyeab Akbarally, Harsha Amarasekera and Jazri Magdon Ismail will continue to serve as trustees on the Bank’s unique flagship CSR venture, ‘OrphanCare’ Trust.

Amana Bank PLC is a stand-alone institution licensed by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange with Jeddah based IsDB Group being the principal shareholder having a 29.97% shareholding of the Bank. The IsDB Group is a ‘AAA’ rated (S&P, Moody’s & Fitch) multilateral development financial institution with a membership of 57 countries. In June 2020 Fitch Ratings Sri Lanka declared an upward revision of the National Long Term Rating of Amãna Bank to BB+(lka) with a Stable Outlook. Amãna Bank does not have any subsidiaries, associates or affiliated institutions, other than the ‘OrphanCare’ Trust.

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Business

Cost-effective clearance of goods across borders to determine worth of Customs Paperless Declaration

Published

9 hours ago

2026/09/25

Thilina Walpola

Containers held up at the Port of Colombo

By Ifham Nizam

The introduction of the Customs Paperless Declaration from October 1 could mark an important step in Sri Lanka’s efforts to modernise trade, but its real value will depend on whether it reduces the time and cost of moving goods through the country’s borders, Customs House Agents & Traders Association President Mohamed Niyas said.

Niyas warned that digitising Customs declarations alone would not necessarily translate into faster cargo clearance or lower costs for businesses.

‘Expecting a dramatic improvement in clearance speed under the present conditions is like expecting Ferrari performance from a Morris Minor configuration, he said.

For importers and exporters, the issue extends well beyond paperwork. Every additional hour or day that cargo remains in the clearance chain can have wider consequences for businesses, including increased port and storage-related costs, additional working-capital requirements, uncertainty over delivery schedules and disruptions to production and distribution.

Niyas said the competitiveness of Sri Lanka’s trading sector ultimately depended on how efficiently goods could move through the country’s border-clearance system.

‘The real bottleneck is not merely the absence of paper. It is the entire clearance ecosystem—the limitations of the existing ASYCUDA World system, excessive regulatory interventions by Other

Government Agencies, multiple approvals, physical examinations, manual interventions, fragmented processes and institutional constraints, he said.

He cautioned that unless these bottlenecks were addressed, there was a risk that the paperless initiative would merely digitise existing bureaucracy.

‘If these underlying constraints remain unchanged, there is a real risk that the new paperless system could become another “copy-and-paste road show”—where an old, complex clearance process is simply transferred onto a digital screen without fundamentally changing the process itself, Niyas said.

For businesses dependent on imported raw materials, machinery, components and other inputs, clearance efficiency can directly affect the wider supply chain.

Delays at the border can create uncertainty for manufacturers, distributors and retailers, while exporters can face difficulties meeting delivery schedules when imported inputs or export consignments are held up.

Niyas therefore argued that the success of the October 1 initiative should be judged by its impact on trade flows rather than by the number of declarations processed electronically.

‘Paperless does not automatically mean faster, he said. ‘Digitising a slow process does not make the process fast. It only makes the slow process digital.’

He said Sri Lanka needed to move towards what he described as “process-less Customs”—a system in which unnecessary procedures are eliminated rather than simply converted into electronic procedures.

Among the reforms he called for are simplification of Customs declarations and approval workflows, improvements to the functionality of ASYCUDA World, greater use of risk-based inspections and better integration of Other Government Agency approvals.

Niyas also called for the elimination of repetitive document submissions and physical endorsements, greater use of pre-arrival processing, sufficient capacity for digital document uploads and clearly defined service-level timelines for Customs and OGAs.

Business

China backs Sri Lanka’s Non-aligned stance to counter regional pressures

Published

9 hours ago

2026/09/25

Thilina Walpola

Chinese Ambassador Wei Huaxiang delivering the keynote address in Colombo

By Sanath Nanayakkare

As global attention has fixed on the high-level diplomatic choreography at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, a subtler, yet profound geopolitical signal was sent from Colombo, yesterday.

In a major address marking the founding anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, newly appointed Chinese Ambassador Wei Huaxiang chose to anchor bilateral relations not just in modern trade or infrastructure, but in a shared respect for Sri Lanka’s legacy of non-aligned independence.

By explicitly invoking Sri Lanka’s foundational role in the 1976 Non-Aligned Summit, Beijing was doing something unexpected in an era defined by fierce great-power rivalry: it was officially validating a small island nation’s right to maintain an independent foreign policy stance.

The Strategic Value of Independence

For decades, nations caught in the crosshairs of major-power competition have faced intense pressure to pick sides. Yet, Ambassador Wei’s embrace of Colombo’s non-aligned tradition signaled a different diplomatic playbook. Instead of demanding alignment, Beijing was framing its partnership as a reliable counterbalance to regional pressures. By honouring Sri Lanka’s diplomatic autonomy, China was effectively reassuring smaller economies that sovereign independence and robust economic cooperation can coexist.

Beyond Ports and Industrial Zones

This diplomatic framing reframed the narrative surrounding major collaborative ventures like the Colombo Port City and Hambantota Port. While foreign analysts often view these projects exclusively through the lens of strategic rivalry, Beijing’s diplomatic messaging tied them back to a historical ethos of solidarity—evoking memories of the 1952 Rubber-Rice Pact.

By marrying economic projects with a stated respect for non-alignment, China is positioning itself as a steadfast stakeholder that respects Sri Lanka’s internal agency during difficult economic and political seasons.

As both nations look toward major milestones in 2027—including the 70th anniversary of diplomatic ties—this nuanced diplomatic move revealed how historic traditions are being leveraged to navigate modern multipolar realities.

For global observers, the takeaway was clear: in the shifting architecture of Asian geopolitics, respecting a nation’s historical neutrality may just be the most effective way to secure a lasting partnership, a diplomatic masterclass that Ambassador Wei Huaxiang executed in style.

Business

Sri Lanka Insurance Life appoints Dr. Sameera Dharmasena Chief Executive Officer

Published

9 hours ago

2026/09/25

Thilina Walpola

Dr. Sameera Dharmasena

Sri Lanka Insurance Life (SLIC Life), the nation’s largest and strongest Life Insurer, is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Sameera Dharmasena as its new Chief Executive Officer, effective 22nd September 2026.

Dr. Dharmasena is a distinguished insurance professional with over 21 years of experience in the Sri Lankan insurance industry, having held senior leadership positions across several leading insurance companies affiliated with some of Sri Lanka’s largest business conglomerates. His extensive career spans both local and multinational insurance environments, bringing together broad industry expertise, strategic leadership and a strong commitment to the advancement of the insurance profession.