HNB marks 50th AGM with CSE bell ringing

HNB Chairman Dinesh Weerakkody (right) rings the opening bell for trading at the Colombo Stock Exchange on Friday. Others from left: CSE Director Shanil Fernando, HNB Director Madu Ratnayake, Director Nilanth De Silva, CSE Chairman Ray Abeywardena, HNB MD and CEO Jonathan Alles, COO Dilshan Rodrigo, Deputy General Manager (Legal) and Board Secretary Thushari Ranaweera, Deputy General Manager (SME and Midmarket) Jude Fernando, Chief Human Resource Officer and Deputy General Manager (HR) Chiranthi Cooray, Chief Internal Auditor and Deputy General Manager (Internal Audit) Niroshana Seneviratne and CSE Director Dilshan Wirasekara – Pix by RuwanWalpola

• MD says bank has significantly improved performance midst challenging economic conditions

By Charumini de Silva

Hatton National Bank (HNB) PLC marked its 50th Annual General Meeting (AGM) by ringing the ceremonial bell to open trade at the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) last Friday.

Speaking at the event, CSE CEO Rajeeva Bandaranaike said that in its existence during the past 130 years, HNB has grown to be listed among the top 10 companies with a market capitalisation of over Rs. 80 billion, a shareholder base of over 14,500 and is also included in the S&P 20 Index. Commending the support extended by HNB for capital market development endeavours, he urged for its continued support as well.

HNB Managing Director and CEO Jonathan Alles said the bank’s performance during 2018 was achieved amidst a fairly challenging economic environment, where the growth rates were low and interest rates being high, leading to a build-up of non-performing assets (NPAs). 

“The increased taxation in the industry continues to challenge us. It now takes us close to almost 60% of PAT at a time where BASEL III requires banks to be well capitalised. New IFRS 9 standards will mean that additional impairment buffers kicked in which impacted the profit and loss (PNL). There are other delays in certain receivables which we are working with the relevant stakeholders,” he added.

Despite this challenging environment, Alles said the bank crossed Rs. 1 trillion in terms of assets in the last financial year, noting that the group crossed it two years back. “We are still the top banking group in terms of profitability this year closing at Rs. 19.1 billion having paid Rs. 14.5 billion in terms of taxes,” he pointed out.

Emphasising that HNB has been successful in adapting to the evolving needs of Sri Lanka, he noted that the bank leads the way in customer-centric digitisation as a part of the ambitious Vision 2020. Regardless of the many challenges that lay ahead for HNB, banking industry and the nation as a whole, they were confident of building even greater value at every level of the Sri Lankan economy.

“Starting 130 years back, there have been many milestones along the way and we will continue to keep accomplishing new milestones as we stretch ourselves to the vision that we have taken upon to deliver to our shareholders and all our stakeholders,” Alles assured.

Operating across 250 customer centres across the country, HNB is the first local bank in Sri Lanka to receive an international rating on par with the sovereign from Moody’s Investor Services while maintaining a national long term rating of AA - (lka) from Fitch Ratings.

In 2018, HNB had the distinction of becoming the number one bank in Sri Lanka in the Top 1000 World Banks 2018 ranked by the ‘The Banker’ magazine of the UK and the number one bank in ‘Business Today’ rankings for 2017/18.

Pic by Ruwan Walpola