Commercial Bank and its MD honoured with prestigious accolades in Singapore

• Asian Business & Social Forum names the bank one of ‘Asia’s Greatest Brands’ and S. Renganathan one of ‘Asia’s Greatest Leaders’

The Commercial Bank of Ceylon has started 2019 on a winning note, with the bank being named one of ‘Asia’s Greatest Brands’ and its Managing Director S. Renganathan being honoured as one of ‘Asia’s Greatest Leaders’ by the Asian Business & Social Forum (ABSF).

Commercial Bank Managing Director S. Renganathan (right) receives one of the two awards presented by ABSF in Singapore

The prestigious double accolades were presented to the bank at the third edition of ‘Asia’s Greatest Brands & Leaders’ at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, as part of the ‘Pride of Asia’ awards series of AsiaOne magazine and URS Consulting. 

The award presented to Commercial Bank in the ‘Banks’ category is the outcome of months of extensive research after which URS and AsiaOne listed the top 100 brands, categorising them as Iconic, Powerful or Emerging. Among the criteria the judging panel considered in selecting the brands were execution of dynamic brand building strategies, consistent and superior financial performance, international presence and adherence to sustainable business practices.

The award presented to Renganathan recognises his leadership in, and contributions to, the banking industry in general and the Commercial Bank in particular, during a career spanning 37 years at Sri Lanka’s largest private bank. 

Renganathan led the bank’s acquisition in 2003 of the Bangladesh operations of Credit Agricole Indosuez (CAI), Commercial Bank’s first ever acquisition of a banking operation, and was the bank’s Country Manager – Bangladesh for five years before returning to be appointed the bank’s first Chief Risk Officer (CRO) and thereafter Deputy General Manager – Personal Banking, Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer.

Award recipients were selected on the basis of primary and secondary research across 16 industries under 62 sub categories in Asia, with evaluation and scoring by independent Jury members, United Research Services International’s primary and secondary data collation and the AsiaOne editorial team, and the entire process reviewed by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The most awarded bank in Sri Lanka for several years, Commercial Bank was the recipient of more than 35 international and local awards in 2018.

The only bank in the country to be ranked among the Top 1000 Banks of the World by The Banker, UK, for eight years in a row, Commercial Bank is in the process of growing into a regional powerhouse: it already operates 19 branches in Bangladesh, has a Tier I banking operation in the Maldives and runs a representative office and a microfinance company in Myanmar, in addition to the 266-branch, 830-ATM network it owns in Sri Lanka. 

Accounting for the largest market capitalisation among all listed banks in Sri Lanka, the Commercial Bank of Ceylon was the first private bank in the country to surpass Rs. 1 trillion in assets, and exceeded Rs. 100 billion in income in the first nine months of 2018, with a deposit base of Rs. 943.6 billion and a loan book of Rs. 857.2 billion at the end of the third quarter of the year. 

A systemically important bank in Sri Lanka, Commercial Bank is the country’s largest lender to SMEs, and has a market share of 18.6% in Sri Lanka’s exports and a 10.5% share in its imports.