The Central Bank of Sri Lanka will hold the LANKAQR Nationwide Rollout campaign on October 25 at its headquarters in Colombo 01 at 10 a.m.
State Minister of Digital Technology and Enterprise Development, Namal Rajapaksa will be the Chief Guest at this event. Every possible measures with regard to health and safety guide line will be applied due to prevailing COVID19 Pandemic during the campaign at the CBSL premises.
“Lanka QR ජනගතකරණය”, islandwide Roll out of QR based payment solution by Central Bank to be deployed for revolutionizing the Digital transaction landscape in Sri Lanka. Enabling monetary transactions through LANKAQR will play a key role in driving a cashless economy.
LANKAQR is a common Quick Response (QR) code standard adopted by financial institutions in Sri Lanka to facilitate fast, secure and low cost digital payments to any merchant, especially small and medium enterprises. It enables customers to pay merchants directly from their bank accounts using a LANKAQR compliant mobile payment app. The payment is instantly credited to the merchant’s bank account. The LANKAQR printed sticker is provided free of charge to merchants to display at their place of business by the member institutions of LANKAQR. To pay using LANKAQR, a customer has to scan the LANKAQR using a mobile payment app and the merchant will receive an instant SMS notification, confirming the receipt of payment.
This is a low cost solution as the maximum Merchant Discount Rate (MDR – fees paid by merchant to the bank that issues the LANKAQR code) has been mandated at 1% by the CBSL and to further encourage merchants to adopt LANKAQR, the MDR will be 0.5% during 2020. There is no cost to the customer in using LANKAQR based payments. It is envisaged that this would encourage digital payments in the economy and reduce the cost of cash management, as well as formalize the informal sector.
