“How Digital Asset Exchange and Blockchain can benefit Sri Lanka”

Bridge Advisory and Consulting in association with Syntrex Global Technologies, the Federation of Information Technology Industry Sri Lanka (FITIS) and Daily FT recently hosted a webinar on the 19th of January 2022 on the topic “How Digital Asset Exchange and Blockchain can benefit Sri Lanka”. With over 300 registrations, the webinar through its discourse provided valuable insights on the trending topics of Blockchain and digital assets – which continue to dominate the dialogue within many circles and networks throughout Sri Lanka.

The webinar featured cross industry panelists including, Sanjay Mendis- Chief Innovation Officer of Bridge Advisory and Consulting, Peter Hofmann- CEO, Custodigit AG, Switzerland, Kavin Phongapandecha- CEO/Co-Founder of Bitazza, Dr. Amal Illesinghe. Chief Information Officer- National Savings Bank, Prasanna Lohar- Vice President- Technology of DCB Bank Limited, Venkatesh Hariharan- Representative of Open Invention Network, Satish Mohan- Chief Technology Officer- Dhiway Networks Private Limited, Dr. Prasad Samarasinghe- FITIS Chairman and Imran Vilcassim who moderated the session.

Having understood Sri Lanka’s vision and road map on the many digitization initiatives around national ID, Blockchain and digital assets, Bridge works closely with key policy decision makers towards driving a ‘new digital economy’ and foundation throughout the country.

Speaking on ‘A possible roadmap for Sri Lanka’, Sanjay Mendis commented, “With Crypto and Blockchain being the fastest growing tech in the world, the opportunities for its adoption will also see an exponential growth in the coming years. Setting up a regulated Cryptocurrency exchange is the first part of this revolution. It is important that Sri Lanka embraces the many opportunities provided by this emerging tech, utilizing it to the fullest to drive economic growth and prosperity.”

“There has been a lot of focus on leveraging Blockchain based Technologies in Sri Lanka, from Cabinet approval in October 2021 to forming a Blockchain committee to advice the government on the way forward. We certainly see opportunities in the e-KYC space and the Central Bank has already initiated the process of exploring blockchain based solutions for e-KYC and SSID based Technology. There are also various use cases in Trade Finance, Reconciliation and Document Storage which can also be looked at” stated Dr. Amal Illesinghe when addressing the advantages to the Banking sector with Blockchain.

Speaking on Crypto tech and public policy changes, Venkatesh Hariharan, stated, “The genie of Blockchain and crypto is out of the bottle. Cryptocurrencies have a USD 2 trillion market cap and have quickly become a small percentage of world GDP, which is at USD 85 trillion. We must embrace crypto for innovation and efficiency and establish guard rails for consumer protection to get the best out of this decentralized technology.”

“The ‘National Strategy on Blockchain’ is very important milestone for any country. It should accelerate the move in the direction towards enabling trusted digital platforms creating Blockchain framework for the development of applications based on this technology. The world is moving ahead, it’s time to collaborate & accelerate this journey towards education, research, government and industry adoption” added Prasanna Lohar, while addressing the topic of ‘A national strategy for Blockchain’

“It’s great to see how Sri Lanka is embracing Blockchain and Digital Assets and how all stakeholders want to work together for a prospering Sri Lanka,” said Peter Hofmann who touched on the topic of ‘Digital Asset Management for conventional financial institutions’

The webinar highlighted the need for Sri Lanka to advance its digital transformation road map by leveraging on developing trends and emerging technologies such as Blockchain which will significantly contribute towards developing a new economy – integral to securing a stable future for the nation.