Combank awarded grand triple at Asiamoney Banking Awards 2018
Commercial Bank of Ceylon has been conferred three prestigious international awards, being adjudged the ‘Best Bank’, ‘Best Bank for Premium Banking Services’ and ‘Best Bank for Corporate Social Responsibility’ in Sri Lanka by Asiamoney, considered the most authoritative voice for the banking industry in the Asia Pacific region.
The most prestigious award of the ceremony, Asiamoney’s Best Bank award recognises Commercial Bank’s profitability in 2017, its growth, relative outperformance of peers and its ability to adapt to changing market conditions and client needs.
The award for ‘Best Bank for Premium Banking Services’ is a tribute to Commercial Bank’s wealth management operations in Sri Lanka, with an emphasis on how its offering has outperformed competitors over the review period. The bank’s strategy in winning net new assets and client acquisition related to business gains, initiatives in areas such as relationship management and digital services and testimonials from clients, contributed to winning this award.
The award for ‘Best Bank for Corporate Social Responsibility’ recognises the bank’s CSR initiatives, achievements and milestones reached in the previous year. Although charitable and philanthropic initiatives were considered, the award also focused on the bank providing financial or market solutions to its customer base.
Commenting on the three prestigious accolades from Asiamoney, Commercial Bank Managing Director/ceo Jegan Durairatnam said, “These awards highlight the balance Commercial Bank maintains between being a financially-sound institution and a service-oriented bank while also contributing generously towards the pressing needs of the society it operates in. This equilibrium is an affirmation that we are on a stable and sustainable trajectory.”
Commercial Bank is the largest private bank in Sri Lanka in terms of its assets (Rs.1.143 trillion as at December 31, 2017) and is positioned as the bank with the highest market capitalisation, all of which contributed to the ‘Best Bank’ award.
The bank’s new product launches in 2017 included the country’s first small and medium entrepreneurs networking society ‘BIZ Club’, a hybrid leasing facility, debit cards with Chip & PIN technology, a loan on fixed deposits facility and the hybrid debit card exclusively for entrepreneurs in the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector.
Also corresponding to the award for Best Bank for Premium Services was Commercial Bank’s personalised banking services offered for high-net-worth customers through the brand ‘Commercial Bank Elite’. The Elite branches offer a number of exclusive services to clientele including the service of a dedicated relationship officer, state-of-theart meeting room facilities, safe locker facilities and changing rooms for customers who travel from outstations.
In the sphere of CSR, Commercial Bank’s largest contribution is towards IT education in Sri Lanka. To date the bank has donated 175 fully-fledged IT laboratories to schools islandwide, benefitting over200,000 students. The bank has also partnered the ‘Smart Schools Project’, helping introduce a comprehensive Learning Management System (LMS) to 65 schools in the Western Province. The aim of the project is to transform the selected schools in to Smart Schools facilitating digital teaching processes.
Alongside these initiatives, Commercial Bank has also invested in uplifting healthcare services and funding research related to preventing and mitigating chronic kidney disease, undertaken projects to preserve the culture and heritage of the country and engaged in other CSR activities that contribute to preserving the environment and providing disaster relief among others. At the close of 2017, the bank’s CSR Trust had completed over 300 projects.