Using ATM cards (US cards) in Sri Lanka- which bank is best to withdraw cash?

Sri Lanka has quite a few banks that you can use for cash withdrawals. ATMs are available vastly throughout the island. We used three different banks to withdraw money:

Commercial Bank

HSBC and

Bank of Ceylon

Here is our take on cashing out at these bank ATMs:

the most expensive charge was by Commercial Bank as it charged more than 3$US for the transaction- the conversion rate it gave : 1$US- 325 rupees. HSBC charged over 2$US for the transaction and gave us conversion rate of 1$US – 324 rupees.

The best so far was Bank of Ceylon, it only charged 1$US to take out the cash at their ATM and gave us the conversion rate of 1$US – 325 rupees. We also heard that Bank of Ceylon does not charge a fee to UK card holders, but cannot say for sure since we have no way of checking it.

So if you have a US based ATM card, choosing out of these three banks – Bank of Ceylon would be our recommendation.

Hope this information is of value to you! Thank you for reading!