Six failed finance companies had Rs 62 billion in deposits

By Saman Indrajith

Finance, Money and Capital Markets and State Enterprises Minister Ajith Nivard Cabraal told Parliament on Wednesday that around 62 billion rupees had been deposited by customers in six failed finance companies during the past six years.

 Responding to a question raised by Ratnapura District SJB parliamentarian Hesha Withanage, the minister said that 256,306 customers had deposited Rs. 61.79 billion from 2015 to Aug 2020 in those companies.

 The failed finance companies were the Central Investment and Finance Ltd    (formerly known as Central Investment and Finance PLC), The Standard Credit Finance Ltd, TKS Finance Ltd., The Finance Company PLC, ETI Finance Ltd., and Swarnamahal Financial Services PLC, the minister said. 

He said that The Finance Company had 147,152 customers who made deposits amounting to Rs. 27,400 million, ETI Finance had 37,586 depositors with Rs. 22,648 million, Central Investment and Finance had 20,161 with Rs. 3,965 million , the Standard Credit Finance had 6600 depositors with Rs. 2,721 million, TKS Finance had 35,184 with Rs. 2,691 million and Swarnamahal Finance Services had 9,623 depositors with Rs. 2,372 million. 

Minister Cabraal tabled in the House the names of the members of the directors of the failed finance companies and the measures had been taken by the Central Bank to assist the depositors in recovering their money.

 The minister said that there were 41 financial institutions registered with the Central Bank as of Aug 31, 2020.