ComBank crowned ‘Best Trade Finance Bank in Sri Lanka’ by Asian Banker

Commercial Bank Deputy General Manager – Corporate Banking Naveen Sooriyarachchi (2nd from left) accepts the award won by the bank at the 2019 Asian Banker Transaction Awards ceremony in Bangkok

The Commercial Bank of Ceylon has been awarded the prestigious title of ‘Best Trade Finance Bank in Sri Lanka’ at the 2019 Asian Banker Transaction Awards that recognise achievements in the competition for market share, product and operational excellence in the financial services industry.

Asian Banker evaluated Commercial Bank’s achievements in cash management, payments, and trade finance with an audit-based approach, before presenting it with this coveted accolade. The bank won the same title last year. 

The selection process for winning an Asian Banker Transaction Award is a rigorous one, completed over several months and involves feedback and interviews with all constituents who are in a position to comment on the candidates. It is anchored by a panel of global leaders and subject matter experts as advisors.

A survey of domestic institutions that use Commercial Bank’s trade finance services, corroborated by interviews and an evaluation of changes in the market share of the competitors, the size and strategic importance of the transaction business as a percentage of the bank’s business, the contribution of the transaction business to total income, the growing annuity value of the business, core and recurrent customer base and the benefits of processing efficiencies and cost management that are passed on to the bank’s clients were among some of the determining factors that led to the bank winning this award.

Asian Banker also looked at the unique features of the bank’s fee-based products and services that are not dependent on credit as the primary relationship and the value they provide to clients, and the key achievements of the bank in the year under review before conferring the ‘Best Trade Finance Bank in Sri Lanka’ title on Commercial Bank. 

The winners for these awards are determined through a combination of surveys, interviews and field research by The Asian Banker’s research staff. The findings of the research are published in a neutral manner, with a scorecard outlining how the different domestic and global players feature in them. Incorporated in 2006, the Asian Banker Business Achievement Awards are widely acknowledged by the financial services industry as the highest possible accolades available to professionals and banks in the Asia Pacific region.

In conjunction with The Asian Banker Business Achievement Awards, The Asian Banker Transaction Banking Awards programme is run on a completely neutral basis and involves a team of researchers assessing over 200 submissions from financial institutions across the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa.

The only Sri Lankan Bank to be ranked among the world’s top 1000 banks for eight years consecutively, Commercial Bank operates a network of 266 branches and 830 ATMs in Sri Lanka. The Bank has won multiple international and local awards in 2016 and 2017 and over 40 international and local awards in 2018. Commercial Bank’s overseas operations encompass Bangladesh, where the bank operates 19 outlets; Myanmar, where it has a Representative Office in Yangon and a Microfinance company in Nay PyiTaw; and the Maldives, where the bank has a fully-fledged Tier I Bank with a majority stake.