Product & Service Launches / Business Expansions
View all(107)📈 LankaRates.com Launches Unified Financial Data Platform
New platform LankaRates.com has launched to consolidate scattered financial data in Sri Lanka, offering a free tool to compare interest rates, currency values, and commodity prices in one place. Key Platform Figures • Tracked Institutions: 60+ banks and finance companies monitored nationwide. • Covered Services: 7 distinct financial rates unified, including fixed deposits (FD), exchange rates, savings, foreign currency accounts, money markets, and gold. • Update Frequency: Exchange rates and gold prices updated intraday; deposit and savings rates refreshed daily. Core Feature Breakdowns • Fixed Deposits & Savings: Tracks standard terms (1, 3, 6, 12 months) alongside promotional tiers (100, 200, 400 days). Includes an integrated calculator to compute real cash returns instead of just headline percentages. • Foreign Currency & Remittances: Tracks buying/selling and telegraphic transfer rates for major global currencies (USD, GBP, EUR, AUD, SGD, and Gulf currencies). Features separate sections for foreign currency savings and FDs to assist those receiving funds from abroad. • Gold & Commodities: Provides live pricing and historic data by weight and karat, synchronized with the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL). Data Integrity & Transparency • Data Transparency: Every financial figure is dated, timestamped, and directly linked back to its official institutional source to eliminate out-of-date information. • Historical Analytics: Features historical charts to help consumers evaluate long-term value trends rather than single-day snapshots. • Neutrality: The platform operates without sign-ups, fees, or sponsored rankings to maintain neutral comparisons.
🇷🇺 Sri Lanka Wins Top Award at Moscow's 'Let's Travel' Forum 2026 📈
Sri Lanka successfully enhanced its destination profile in Russia at the 6th Let’s Travel International Tourism Forum (ITF) 2026 in Moscow, held from June 10–14. • Overall Footprint: The event drew over 511,000 visitors, 180 country/regional stands, and 574 organizations. Sri Lanka secured the prestigious 'Let’s Travel First-Degree Laureate Award' among 12 international participants. • Strategic Bilateral Gains: Led by Deputy Tourism Minister Prof. Ruwan Ranasinghe, the delegation initiated high-level talks with Russia's Ministry of Economic Development to expand regional outreach, organize familiarization tours, and enhance crucial air connectivity. • Key Policy Focus: Sri Lanka participated in high-level panels addressing direct flights and simplified visas, positioning the island as a highly accessible year-round destination. • Pavilion & B2B Highlights: The Sri Lankan pavilion drove massive consumer traffic using authentic Ceylon tea experiences, wildlife, and cultural showcases. Crucially, B2B sessions connected Sri Lankan partners with outbound tour operators across 8 Russian regions, moving market expansion beyond just Moscow and St. Petersburg to aid geographic diversification. • Media Visibility: High-impact exclusive interviews with TASS and Sputnik News Agencies amplified Sri Lanka’s tourism branding directly to the Russian mass market.
🔒 Concentric AI Joins 2nd Data Privacy Summit as Strategic Partner
The 2nd Data Privacy and Protection Summit 2026, organized by the Daily FT and CICRA, is scheduled for July 23, 2026, at the Cinnamon Grand. The event serves as a critical platform for data protection professionals as the enforcement of Sri Lanka’s Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) approaches. • Strategic Partnership: AI-driven data security platform Concentric AI, in collaboration with local tech leader Orin Corporation, has signed on as the Strategic Partner. Orin Corporation returns to support the event following its partnership during the inaugural 2025 summit. • National Context & Compliance: As AI-driven cyber threats grow more sophisticated, the summit emphasizes a shifting landscape where organizations must deploy AI defenses to protect data assets. It targets both government institutions and private enterprises acting as data controllers to ensure urgent compliance with the upcoming PDPA regulations. • Key Focus Areas: Attendees will gain insights into deploying AI for threat defense, reducing data security risk surfaces, understanding real-world data risk management, and building actionable, PDPA-ready compliance frameworks to avoid penalties and breaches.
📱 SLT-MOBITEL & MFA Launch 'Lankakonect' App for Overseas Sri Lankans
Sri Lanka’s premier connectivity provider, SLT-MOBITEL, has collaborated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment, & Tourism to launch the ‘Lankakonect’ mobile application, accelerating the country's national digital transformation drive. • Core Functionality: Serves as a secure, trilingual (Sinhala, Tamil, and English) complaint management platform. Sri Lankan migrant workers and overseas citizens can register, submit, and track grievances in real time regarding employment contract violations, unpaid wages, abuse, and missing persons. • Target Beneficiaries: Streamlines support for the vulnerable migrant workforce—particularly domestic workers—by eliminating physical travel and long wait times. The system allows immediate escalation, enabling the Consular Affairs Division and the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) to resolve issues remotely. • Economic Context: The platform underscores the state's focus on welfare for a crucial economic segment. In 2025, Sri Lankan overseas workers contributed a record US$ 8.07 Bn in remittances, playing a vital role in national development and foreign exchange stability. • Partners & Scope: Supported by the UN’s International Labour Organization (ILO) as a Technical Partner. The initiative scales up digital client management frameworks previously trialed at the Kuwait Embassy into a unified, worldwide platform for the diaspora.
💳 Visa Launches 'Click to Pay' in Sri Lanka to Boost E-Commerce
Global payments leader Visa has officially introduced 'Click to Pay' in Sri Lanka, aimed at creating a more secure and frictionless digital commerce experience for consumers, merchants, and issuers. • Digital Commerce Impact: The solution directly addresses "guest checkout" friction—such as manual data entry and cart abandonment—by offering a simple, one-time setup using an email address or mobile number. Subsequent online purchases can be completed in just a few clicks. • Security & Tokenization: Security is driven by tokenization technology, which replaces sensitive card details with secure digital tokens during transactions. This minimizes fraud risk by keeping actual card numbers invisible during the payment flow, while maintaining required authentication like OTPs. • Ecosystem Benefits: According to Visa, digital payments infrastructure will see improvements across the board: consumers get faster checkouts, merchants benefit from higher conversion rates, and issuer banks drive increased card utilization. _Note: Based on official corporate launch data._
📈 CBSL & UNDP Partner to Boost Financial Literacy & MSME Resilience
The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) and the UNDP have formalised Phase 2 of their partnership to advance the National Financial Literacy Roadmap (2024–2028), aiming to empower vulnerable communities and small businesses. • Core Objective: Build on technical support from 2024–2025 to improve household economic resilience, support MSMEs, and foster inclusive nationwide economic growth. • Key Focus Areas: • Capacity Building: Training government outreach officers across all districts to deliver financial literacy education to rural communities, integrating new climate-resilient financial management modules. • Advocacy & Outreach: Launching a comprehensive public awareness campaign to drive responsible financial behavior. • Programme Integration: Embedding financial decision-making tools directly into UNDP's ongoing economic development initiatives. • Strategic Backing: The initiative is supported by international and corporate partners, including the Government of Japan, Chrysalis, VISA, and Hirdaramani-Lacoste. • National Context: By improving financial capabilities, the initiative intends to safeguard the MSME sector—a critical driver of local employment and regional diversification—against economic and climate-related shocks.
📦 Delmege Consumer Partners with Daraz to Expand Digital Footprint
Delmege Consumer, the flagship FMCG cluster of the Delmege Group, has officially partnered with Daraz, Sri Lanka's leading e-commerce platform, to transition its extensive product portfolio into the digital space and enhance consumer convenience islandwide. • Strategic Objective: The partnership aims to strengthen Delmege’s distribution network, improve brand visibility, and leverage the growing momentum of online commerce in Sri Lanka by providing an accessible, secure, and reliable online purchasing platform. • Channel Expansion: Already operating across retail, wholesale, HoReCa, export, and modern trade channels, this move significantly expands Delmege’s digital footprint and modernizes its customer-focused distribution strategy. • Product Portfolio Impact: The collaboration makes both local and international brands accessible via Daraz. This includes local staples like Delmege canned fish, Hiru Kahata tea, soya, pasta, and the Motha dessert range, alongside global brands such as Kellogg’s, Pringles, and the Ferrero portfolio (Nutella, Ferrero Rocher). • Operational Reach: Leveraging Daraz's established e-commerce infrastructure, the partnership ensures islandwide delivery and secure payment options, making daily essentials more accessible to Sri Lankan households.
💻 National Virtual Internship Platform Launched to Bridge Talent Gap
SLASSCOM, alongside tech facilitator BeyondOne, has officially launched a national Virtual Internship Platform to address the shortage of physical placements in Sri Lanka following the 2022 economic crisis. • The Challenge: Post-crisis cost-cutting led companies to scale back physical internships, leaving a growing intake of university students struggling to complete mandatory graduation requirements. • The Solution: The platform offers structured, project-based virtual internships, giving students remote access to industry mentorship, practical business environments, and hands-on learning. • Industry Impact: The initiative directly supports Sri Lanka's ICT/BPM sector by building a future-ready digital talent pool, protecting graduate employability, and preventing universities from being forced to make practical training optional. • Pilot Partners: Leading IT firms including Virtusa, Sysco LABS, 99x, hSenid, ADA, Fortude, Covalent Systems, and IIBA are participating in the pilot phase alongside local universities.
📈 Alumex Deploys AI & Industry 4.0 Tech to Boost Aluminium Manufacturing
Hayleys Group subsidiary Alumex PLC has unveiled a major high-capacity, AI-enabled production line at its Sapugaskanda facility, marking a major shift toward automation, precision, and sustainability in Sri Lanka’s manufacturing sector. • Operational & Capacity Boost: The new 20 MN, 7-inch advanced short-stroke aluminium extrusion line slashes the system's dead cycle to 14–16 seconds. It is set to exceed production levels of 1,000 kg per hour, driving total monthly output capacity beyond 2,000 metric tons. • Efficiency & Sustainability: The technology generates massive energy savings of 30% to 40% compared to traditional systems. Backed by IoT-enabled real-time data monitoring, it optimizes yield efficiencies to a precise 89%–92%. • Market & Sector Impact: Designed to produce global brands of aluminium proprietary systems, the upgrade directly supports local and export requirements in construction, infrastructure, and solar mounting segments. Alumex currently exports to over 17 countries, including the USA, UK, and Australia, and operates recycling facilities processing over 12,000 metric tonnes annually. • Industry Development: Alongside high-precision manufacturing, the company continues to drive local technical skills, with its Alumex Training Academy having trained more than 30,000 individuals over the past 27 years to uplift domestic fabrication standards.
Amana Bank Expands to Balangoda with First SBC in Ratnapura District 🏦
• Network Expansion: Amana Bank has opened its 46th Self Banking Centre (SBC) in Balangoda. This marks the bank's very first SBC footprint established within the Ratnapura District. • Location & Accessibility: Located strategically at No. 321A, Ratnapura Road, Balagahamulla, Balangoda, the centre provides 24/7 access to essential banking services for local individuals, businesses, and the community. • Available Facilities: The newly established SBC is equipped to handle key automated transactions around the clock, including cash withdrawals, cash deposits, and cheque deposits. • Community Impact: Alongside the opening ceremony—attended by local bank officials, religious leaders, and police officials—Amana Bank conducted a corporate social responsibility initiative by distributing school stationery items to under-privileged primary schools in the Balangoda area.
📈 DMS Launches IBM Cloudability Managed Service for FinOps Adoption in Sri Lanka
• Event Overview: DMS Software Technologies hosted "FinOps Unlocked" on June 10 at Cinnamon Life, Colombo, drawing leading CIOs and IT executives. The forum focused on cloud financial management (FinOps) to transform cloud spend into business value through visibility and governance. • Key Initiative: DMS Director/CEO Lasantha Bogoda announced the launch of the DMS IBM Cloudability Managed Service Provider (MSP) Program. This initiative marks a milestone in empowering Sri Lankan enterprises with managed services, tools, and expertise to maximize cloud investments while maintaining financial discipline. • Technology Highlights: The event featured insights from IBM specialists on cloud cost management. Presentations demonstrated the IBM Cloudability platform's capabilities in real-time financial visibility, resource allocation, and spend optimization at scale, aligning ICT infrastructure costs with strategic business goals.
📈 Kapruka Becomes First Sri Lankan Tech Company to Open Store to AI Agents
Kapruka Holdings PLC (KPHL) has launched a public Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, becoming the first technology company in Sri Lanka to open its systems directly to AI agents. • Core Tech Deployment: The live server (mcp.kapruka.com) adopts the Anthropic-backed MCP open standard, listed on the global registry. It enables global AI assistants (e.g., Claude, ChatGPT) to execute end-to-end tasks—searching products, checking Sri Lankan delivery, generating secure guest checkout links, and tracking orders—via standard conversation. • Strategic Alignment: The move positions Kapruka early in the emerging "agentic commerce" shift. It supports the company’s capital-light model by opening its main growth drivers—Partner Central (marketplace), Services Platform, and Cross Border (USD e-distribution via Amazon US/UK/Canada)—to AI-driven transactions globally at minimal extra cost. • Local Innovation Ecosystem: To foster development, Kapruka launched the _Kapruka Agent Challenge_ running until the end of June 2026. Local developers are building active demos, including full-screen chat experiences supporting English, Sinhala, and Tanglish. _Note: Summary based on official corporate announcement on June 15, 2026._