Shareholders and investors are the primary providers of capital for the Bank. The Bank maintains regular communication with them to keep them updated on the financial performance.

Customers are one of the most important stakeholders of the Bank and are, indeed, its raison d’etre. They include an incredibly diverse range: large corporations, SMEs, micro-enterprises, and individuals from all walks of life. The Bank needs to continually feel the pulse of their needs, tastes, and aspirations. Particularly within the backdrop of the past years’ turbulence, these are constantly changing and evolving. The increasing trend towards digitalisation, which has been an aggressive thrust of the Bank, has done much towards changing patterns of engagement with customers. This has been partly due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and fuel shortages but also due to changing customer profiles, with more customers from the millennial generation

Our employees, particularly those at the front lines at the branches, are those who directly interact with the customer. They require technical knowledge in banking and soft skills such as customer service, etiquette, and complaint handling. The reputation of the Bank depends a great deal on them. Ethics and accountability are part of the Bank’s core values. An internal code of conduct within the Bank lays down policies on conflict of interest, insider dealings, unfair business practices, and confidentiality. A whistleblower policy and the Listening Wall allow employees to report actual or suspected malpractices.

DFCC has a history of working with a broad spectrum of business partners. With its heritage of being a development bank, it has long experience partnering with institutional creditors to obtain long-term funding. While new long-term funding is in abeyance due to the financial crisis, country rating downgrade, and the consequent dampened demand for credit, this was revived in 2023 with DFCCs accreditation by the Green Climate Fund enabling the financing of climate-friendly products in Sri Lanka. We also interact with many vendors to procure goods and services.

Our procurement policy ensures a consistent, efficient, and best-practice approach to ensure that the Bank acquires goods and services transparently, cost-effectively, ethically and in a timely manner. We consider our suppliers to be not merely suppliers but partners in our value-creation process and seek to build long-term and productive relationships with them.

The Bank is of interest to the Government due to its role in economic development and contributing to the national sustainability (especially environmental) agenda. Considering the nature of our organisation and activities, we come under the purview of many regulatory bodies, such as the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, the Colombo Stock Exchange, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka, and certain other Government departments. We ensure compliance with all legal and regulatory requirements by regulatory bodies and government institutions.

Considering the Bank’s wide range of activities, it has been advantageous to maintain membership in several associations and include the best practices and standards issued by these organisations. These include national and regional chambers of commerce and industry, banking and financial bodies, professional associations, and capital market institutions. We have obtained membership in several diverse commercial and professional associations to broaden our reach and effectiveness. These include banking associations, Chambers of Commerce and Industry, financial market-related institutions, and professional bodies. Through these partnerships, we have enhanced our reputation and can draw on their knowledge and skills for our continued growth (Refer Business Partner Capital for details).

Communities are groups and organisations that impact on and/or are impacted by the Bank’s activities. Examples include local communities (particularly in rural or semi-urban areas), community based organisations, and religious leaders. In order to empower the communities to raise their socio-economic status, the Bank strives to adopt various socially responsive CSR activities.

These are groups or organisations that form to support specific social, political, cultural, or environmental issues. This includes community-based organisations, trade unions, NGOs and INGOs. It also includes the media; here, the Bank has a special interest through its press releases and other news items that may appear in the media. Community-based organisations may impact the Bank through their advocacy and ability to influence opinion at local levels. Some more powerful advocacy Groups and NGOs/INGOs may have a broader impact with their ability to influence public opinion and exert pressure on the Government in policy making. These groups and organisations may include those backed by powerful business or political interests