01 — Overview

People’s Bank is a historic institution in Sri Lanka. As a 58-year-old pillar of the community, it holds the distinction of being the bank with the highest number of accounts in the country. By 2014, its asset base crossed the LKR 1 trillion mark, establishing it as the second-largest bank in the industry. Despite its massive legacy and traditional roots, the bank embarked on a sweeping, multi-year transformation between 2015 and 2018 to modernize its services, digitize its operations, and aggressively enhance its customer value proposition.

02 — The Challenge

Operating as a legacy state bank, People's Bank needed to keep pace with rapid global financial trends and cater to the fast-changing aspirations of modern customers. The challenges included:

Infrastructure Upgrades: Upgrading traditional IT, the Core Banking System, data warehousing, and POS infrastructure to handle enterprise-level demands.

Security & Reliability: Strengthening risk management capabilities and upgrading the ATM network to a high-security hardware platform.

Customer Convenience: Evolving past traditional brick-and-mortar limitations to meet the growing demand for seamless, 24/7 financial solutions.

03 — The Strategy

The revolution began as a comprehensive blueprint rolled out strategically across a multi-year timeline (including the strategic plan for 2016–2020) to fortify market positioning and build long-term value. Key strategic vectors included:

Phased Rollout: Beginning with high-impact visual changes and moving into backend digital overhauls.

Green Banking: Launching a Green Banking Concept to firmly anchor the bank's sustainability commitments into its operational growth.

Massive Marketing: Deploying strong, highly targeted marketing campaigns to communicate these pivotal changes, ensuring they were warmly welcomed by the public.

Large-Scale Financing: Acting as the lead financier for monumental national projects, such as the LKR 10.9 billion syndicated loan facility extended to Hayley’s for the acquisition of Singer Sri Lanka.

04 — The Identity

The core visual and emotional shift centered around the complete re-launch of the corporate logo (initiated in 2015 and unveiled fully in 2016).

The Concept: The new corporate logo embraced the quintessence of being thoroughly modern while staying strictly true to the core premise of being "a bank for the people."

Branch Rejuvenation: In tandem with the new logo, physical branches across the island were refurbished with a vibrant new color theme, signaling a fresh, energetic era to everyday consumers.

05 — The System

The strategic blueprint materialised through a highly advanced self-banking and digital ecosystem introduced over consecutive years:

Self-Banking Units (SBUs): Introduction of Sri Lanka's very first SBUs. By 2016, Self-Banking Centres comprising Cash Deposit Machines (CDMs), ATMs, and kiosks were rolled out across strategic locations to offer seamless solutions.

Fully Digital Branches: In 2017, the bank opened Sri Lanka’s first-ever fully digitalised bank branch in Colombo.

Alternative Digital Channels (2018): Six distinct digital pathways were launched to capture both retail and corporate segments:

• People’s Wave: Retail mobile banking app (which became the most downloaded finance app in the country with a 4.7 rating on Google Play and over 300,000 active users).

• People’s Web: Internet banking portal.

• People’s Wiz: Express banking system.

• People’s Wyn: Internet banking and mobile app optimised for corporate clients.

• RLOS & CLOS: Retail and Corporate Loan Origination Systems to revolutionise credit processing.