Traditional USD draft clearing took more than three weeks to credit customers. This is due to local banks having to send USD drafts to the respective 'Nostro' account maintaining banks which were based abroad.
To overcome the lengthy clearing process, LankaPay (Pvt) Ltd launched USD Draft Clearing System in 2002. At the time, a semi-computerized clearing system was used for clearing of drafts denominated in US dollars issued by Licensed Commercial Banks (LCBs) in Sri Lanka and payable to Sri Lankan individuals and institutions. This system was also used to clear drafts issued by banks’ exchange houses abroad and drawn on LCBs in Sri Lanka. As a result, the time taken to clear USD drafts were reduced from three weeks to four days. It also saved the clearing fees chargeable from the banks significantly.
With a view of continuously improving the services provided by LankaPay to its members, LankaPay launched the US Dollar Draft Online Image Transfer System (UITS) on 24th July 2019. UITS is functioning as a web based online clearing system and eliminates the need to physically present the drafts for clearing. UITS also improves the clearing time to T+1.
Currently there are 22 licensed commercial banks connected to UITS. UITS covers the clearing of following instruments:
Participation for US Dollar Draft Online Image Transfer System
All Licensed commercial banks operating in Sri Lanka are eligible to participate for UITS.
Data Submission Mode
UITS is fully online payment systems and all clearing sessions’ data submission and retrieval done online.
Settlement Bank
Current settlement bank for the UITS is Sampath Bank PLC. LankaPay appoints a settlement bank once in three years.