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Natasha
Natasha
Jan 09 2026
63The inaugural Sri Lanka Fintech Summit 2025, held recently, marked a decisive step in shaping the country’s modern, inclusive, and investment-ready digital economy. Designed as more than just a conference, the event united policymakers, regulators, investors, and fintech leaders to define industry priorities for the year ahead. It also attracted several leading international and local fintech experts, investors, global fintech influences and startups fulfilling a clear objective of the industry. Another major requirement of the industry was to bring all the stakeholders together, such as banks, NBFIs, Fintech companies, Startups and Financial Sector Service providers, to collaborate and grow the ecosystem, which was clearly achieved as an outcome of the Summit. “Our members wanted international experts to share knowledge, investors to see what we are building, startups to present their solutions, and youth to understand the future they will shape to fulfill a core objective of the association,” said Channa de Silva, Chairman of the Fintech Forum, Sri Lanka. “Most importantly, we needed to leave with concrete action points for the industry.”
A series of closed-door roundtables conducted via a guided framework formed the heart of the summit, each focusing on a key area of the fintech ecosystem. With participation from the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), the Ministry of Digital Economy, Port City Colombo, and the Board of Investment (BOI), these sessions produced actionable frameworks and KPIs to guide sectoral progress in the future. “It was about defining KPIs, setting targets, assigning responsibilities, and giving the industry a shared direction,” de Silva explained.
Chaired by Damith Pallewatte, CEO of Hatton National Bank, the opening roundtable mapped Sri Lanka’s Vision 2030 for digital banking. Participants called for a national cloud policy, a bank–fintech partnership framework, and progress toward a digital assets model, including CBDC research. Implementing and expanding the national digital ID for banking and payments was recognized as a key enabler of inclusion and innovation.
The second session was chaired by Channa de Silva, who is also the CEO of LankaPay, and focus was on fintech innovation and financial inclusion. The participants set a national goal to reduce cash in circulation over GDP percentage from the current 4.5% to 3.5% within three years. The plan prioritizes targeting high-volume areas where physical cash is in use, such as transport, utilities and SME payments while expanding digital access through agency banking via post offices and cooperatives. Participants also proposed a national trust and digital financial literacy campaign and urging the government to lead by example in digital payments adoption
The third discussion, Regulatory Innovation – Sandbox 2.0, chaired by Dr Ranee Jayamaha, former CBSL Deputy Governor, explored how to remove bottlenecks in regulatory engagement and fast-track fintech approvals. The group urged CBSL to publish a formal definition of “fintech” and transparent guidelines and decided to establish an interim multi-regulatory committee to collate common problems raised by fintech companies and present them to the authorities, discuss issues and streamline approvals. In the long term, they agreed to lobby for a unified regulatory authority for fintech oversight.
The fourth roundtable, Harnessing Digital Assets and CBDCs, was chaired by Sandun Hapugoda, Country Manager for Mastercard Sri Lanka and the Maldives. It explored opportunities and challenges in digital assets, blockchain, and CBDC adoption. Participants agreed that the top priority is to clearly define regulatory responsibilities, as the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE), and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) each have potential roles in establishing the legal recognition and framework for digital assets. They agreed to identify viable blockchain use cases to promote and endorse the CBSL’s cautious approach to CBDCs, recommending continued research until a national use case emerges.
Chaired by Rajeeva Bandaranaike, former CEO of the Colombo Stock Exchange, the 5th session, titled “market access and international partnerships”, focused on rebuilding investor confidence and repositioning Sri Lanka’s image through a unified narrative. Participants proposed a standing industry–government forum to address investment approval bottlenecks and advocate for policy consistency and tax simplification, which are conducive to investments
They also discussed regional partnerships with venture funds, frontier market investment funds, and iaspora-linked venture studio models to channel new capital into Sri Lanka’s fintech ecosystem and support Lankan fintechs to expand into India and other neighbouring markets.
The final session, chaired by Madu Ratnayake, Co-founder and President of Scybers, focused on cybersecurity and resilience. The participants agreed to create a Financial Sector Intelligence and Information-Sharing Framework under CBSL’s FinCSIRT and a Security Leadership Forum to coordinate responses to emerging threats.
They highlighted the urgent need for cybersecurity talent development, proposing cross-industry CISO training and regulatory pathways for IT and risk professionals. A nationwide fraud awareness campaign, adoption of a bank.lk domain, and fixed-prefix phone numbers were also recommended to protect citizens and build trust.
“This summit is not an end, but only a beginning, a space where the industry, regulators and government stakeholders meet to shape the future together of the digital economy,” said de Silva. “We now have a strong foundation, but what matters is sustained collaboration and visible progress.” The Fintech Forum of Sri Lanka has long-term plans for the National Fintech Summit, in addition to making it an annual event, providing a continuing platform for policy dialogue, progress review, and the advancement of a trusted, inclusive digital financial ecosystem for the nation are the wider objectives.
