Bank of Ceylon wins SLIM Nielsen Award

BOC Acting General Manager D.P.K. Gunasekara receiving the “People’s Banking Service Provider of the Year” award (centre). Also pictured from left: BOC Deputy General Manager W.N.P. Suranimala, Senior Deputy General Manager (Human Resources) K.E.D. Sumanasiri, and Chief Marketing Officer Dr. Indunil Liyanage

• State giant is the “People’s Banking Service Provider of the Year”

“Your heartbeat vs. the nation’s heartbeat?” – the theme of the SLIM Nielsen People’s Awards could not have expressed it better. Bank of Ceylon is the “People’s Banking Service Provider of the Year” at the SLIM Nielsen Peoples Awards 2020. This prestigious event is all about what the “true voice of Sri Lanka” has to say about a brand. It is all about how a brand has made an impression on the people of this country – of how well it has harmonized with the heartbeat of the nation, a measure of its strength as a brand. This event, organized by the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM), the national body of marketers in Sri Lanka, jointly with Nielsen Company (Lanka) Limited, is one that brands and brand custodians in the country look forward to.

This event is the platform that demonstrates the strength of a brand’s equity, which arises from it being a true “choice of the people” from amongst all renowned brands in the country. All award recipients are selected through an island-wide survey conducted by the Nielsen Company (Lanka) Ltd, which is one of the renowned multinational research companies in the world. This independent survey demonstrates the brand’s attachment with the people and the effectiveness of the brand’s communication towards them. Annually, Nielsen conducts a large scale survey across all 25 districts of Sri Lanka, covering citizens between the ages of 15 to 60 years, who will be interviewed and asked to recall their favorite brands for various categories. In order to conduct this extensive research, Nielsen follows comprehensive methodology including a large sample group. Nielsen states that tabulated results on brands are made available to SLIM and that these winners selected are truly the ones who have made a lasting impression in the minds of Sri Lankan community. The award itself states how a brand has penetrated and established itself as a household brand in hearts and minds of the people escaping the clutter created by every other brand through media over a period of time.

“The achievement is evidence that our strategic thinking and investments made to project the brand BOC and to establish it amongst the people have been a fruitful one. I wish to take this opportunity to thank the whole staff of our bank for the hard work and commitment to develop the BOC brand as an accomplished brand through the true voice of the people. Furthermore I wish to thank all Sri Lankans including our valued customers for being with us and supporting our journey towards excellence to become the household brand for banking,” stated Acting General Manager D.P.K. Gunasekara. 

The brand of BOC has been named as the Country’s No. 1 Banking Brand for the last eleven consecutive years by the Brand Finance Sri Lanka, and this has been restated at InterBrand “Best Sri Lankan Brands” inauguration convention. Considering the impact BOC has over the Sri Lankan community, the CMO Council Asia conferred the Master Brand Status for the year 2017-2018.  The brand of BOC has been named as one of the Asia’s Best Brands in 2013 by the Chief Marketing Officers Council (CMO Council) based in Mumbai. 

Since its inception, Bank of Ceylon’s motive has been the same – promoting social and economic development of the country and its people. As such the BOC brand has been strategically adapting its products and services portfolio becoming the Sri Lankan household banking brand, with a good understanding of future social and economic trends that requires tailor-made banking and financial services. The Bank of Ceylon was also named as one of the Top Most Admired Companies in the country for the year 2019 at the 2nd convention organized by the International Chamber of Commerce Sri Lanka (ICCSL) and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA). It is also named as one of the Top 1000 Banks in the world by The Banker U.K. Magazine, with the country rank as No. 1.   

BOC has altered its strategy from time to time and adapted the digital transformation in the early part of 2012 and has successfully moved into workflow automation which will cover all important business processes shortly. BOC being the largest and also a state owned bank, this is an endorsement of its commitment towards the Government’s digitalization program. With the success it has gained through the transformation, BOC will soon be the first local Bank to automate all business processes and to provide customer convenience with regard to apply for account opening, loans, and other service requests from anywhere at anytime. 

The Bank of Ceylon has been a trusted financial partner to clients for over 80 years and has reached extraordinary milestones such as surpassing Rs. 1 trillion assets in 2012, Rs. 1 trillion in deposits in 2015 and Rs. 1 trillion advances in 2016 as the first Sri Lankan bank to do so. Currently the Bank’s asset value exceeds Rs. 2.4 trillion and is the highest asset base owned by a single business entity in the country, its deposit base stands at Rs. 2 trillion and advances stands at Rs. 1.6 trillion. Currently the Bank of Ceylon is the only Sri Lankan bank to own a “trillion triplet” in the balance sheet. This is yet another milestone in the Sri Lankan banking industry. Such capabilities bestows great responsibilities on the Bank of Ceylon to serve all stakeholders including its very diverse customer base from individuals to businesses and organizations from different geographic locations and economic strata. Overseas, the Bank of Ceylon maintains four branches in Chennai, Male, Hulu-Male and Seychelles and also a banking subsidiary in London. The Bank’s approach to cater to the very dynamic banking needs of its customer base has been the key factor behind BOC brand’s 80-year-long success. With the time-tested vision as “Bankers to the Nation”, BOC has delivered the best results for its true stakeholders, citizens and the Government of Sri Lanka.