The proposed Rs. 500 million joint venture investment bank by the DFCC Bank and HNB which was a long time coming will start operations next month as it has now got the final regulatory approval, according to a senior DFCC official.

“The name and the logo have been assigned to the new company which will be launched at the media conference to be held next Thursday,” the official, who declined to be named, said.

He said that there will be equal representation of both HNB and DFCC on the director board with Nihal Fonseka tipped to be the Chairman of the new firm. Jayantha Perera, HNB's Head of International Banking and Business Development is slated to be the Managing Director of the investment bank.

he two entities have sorted out the organisational structure of the new company and the investment for DFCC will be nearly Rs.150 million. He said that there will not be duplication of staff, work areas, but a synergisation of the two companies’ strengths.

“Both DFCC and HNB are into areas such as primary dealership, corporate finance and stock brokering, but we deal with different market segments,” the DFCC official said, explaining that HNB is more into retail areas in this business, while DFCC has a strong corporate base. “We do not have common clients and we need all the staff, because we will not be duplicating any function,” he explained.