Sri Lanka’s national payment network ‘LankaPay’ processed a total of Rs. 34 trillion in transactions in 2024, its CEO Channa De Silva said, underscoring a significant uptake in digital payment adoption across the country.
Speaking to the media on Tuesday (25), De Silva said that real-time transactions alone accounted for Rs. 17 trillion, exceeding half the nation’s GDP, dispelling the common belief that digital payment adoption in Sri Lanka remains low.
“I think with the adoption of digital payments, it’s a misconception that adoption has not happened. So adoption is there, especially among the corporates, and probably the urban segment. However, the problem is the retail, where SMEs outside of Colombo, where financial inclusivity must come in,” he noted
The announcement comes as Sri Lanka’s digital payments landscape continues to expand rapidly.
In February, Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya told Parliament that government digital payments reached Rs. 1.78 trillion in 2024, marking a 114% increase from Rs. 828 billion in 2023.
The Central Bank’s latest Payments Bulletin showed a 27.4% year-on-year increase in e-commerce transactions during the fourth quarter of 2024, valued at Rs. 367.6 billion.
Earlier this month, ICTA Board Member Chandima Cooray projected that Sri Lanka’s current $3.5 billion digital payments economy could grow to $15 billion by 2030, signalling ongoing confidence in the sector’s trajectory.
Sri Lanka’s digital payments ecosystem has been shaped by early reforms led by the Central Bank and ICTA in the 2010s, with technical support from India’s UPI system playing a key role.
As part of this momentum, the government launched its GovPay platform in February, onboarding 16 public institutions to streamline state-sector digital transactions.
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