Combank declared ‘Best Bank in Sri Lanka’ by Financeasia
The Commercial Bank of Ceylon (Combank) has been declared the Best Bank in Sri Lanka at the 2018 Country Awards for Achievement of Financeasia, considered Asia’s leading financial publishing company.
This is the eighth occasion that Commercial Bank has won this prestigious award in the 10 years since it became the first Sri Lankan institution to be so honoured, underlining the consistency of the bank’s performance in the past decade.
The Financeasia Country Awards are based on the respective banks’ performance and key events of the year; financial results including profits, NPL ratios, provisioning, return on equity, capital adequacy ratios, total assets, loans, deposits and branch network; metrics for internal targets; vision and long-term strategy;and market position versus the nearest competitor, and must be backed by feedback of stock market analysts.
Commercial Bank distinguished itself in its category (Private Domestic Banks) in the year of assessment (2017) for Financeasia’s Best Bank accolade, achieving the highest market capitalisation, highest gross income, highest operating income, highest profit before tax, highest profit after tax, highest total assets, highest deposits and highest gross loans, and had the best CASA ratio.
The bank also lent Rs.131.8 billion to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMES) in 2017 alone, paid Rs.11.5 billion in taxes to the government, channelled 10.56 percent of the country’s imports and 18.58 percent of its exports in that year, and was the Sri Lankan bank with the largest footprint in Asia.
“We are naturally elated to win this award for the eighth time,” Commercial Bank Chief Operating Officer S. Renganathan said. “The Financeasia award is widely regarded as one of the best benchmarks of a bank’s performance and position vis-a-vis its peers because it is based entirely on an evaluation of key performance indicators and the feedback of independent analysts. This uniform assessment makes no special concessions for banks in smaller countries.”
The Finance Asia Best Bank in Sri Lanka award places Commercial Bank alongside some of the leading banks in the region adjudged the Best Domestic Banks in their respective countries this year.
They include DBS Bank (Singapore), CTBC Bank (China), Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong), Siam Commercial Bank (Thailand), Vietcombank (Vietnam), HDFC Bank (India), Bank Central Asia (Indonesia), Kookmin Bank (Korea), CIMB (Malaysia), MCB Bank (Pakistan), and City Bank (Bangladesh).