Nations Trust Bank provides insights to investors through investor webinar

From left: Senior Executive Vice President Commercial Banking Hemantha Gunetilleke, Chief Financial Officer Ajith Akmeemana, Director/CEO Renuka Fernando, Senior Executive Vice President Consumer Banking and Cards Priyantha Talwatte and Chief Operating Officer Thilak Piyadigama of Nations Trust Bank

The Nations Trust Bank Investor Forum Webinar is held to provide the investment community with a holistic, comprehensive understanding of the bank’s financial performance, general operations, future plans and status of the strategic initiatives. 

Since the beginning of this year, Nations Trust Bank has conducted investor forums via a webinar providing an easily accessible, flexible platform for investors from diverse backgrounds to participate. 

The Investor Forum webinar, which focused on the first-half performance of the bank for 2018, was conducted on 31 August. Nations Trust Bank PLC Director/CEO Renuka Fernando delivered the main presentation and this was followed by a lively, interactive Q&A session. 

A panel comprising top bank officials was present to provide answers to questions in real-time. The panel was made up of Director/CEO Renuka Fernando, Chief Financial Officer Ajith Akmeemana, Senior Executive Vice President Consumer Banking and Cards Priyantha Talwatte, Chief Operating Officer Thilak Piyadigama and Senior Executive Vice President Commercial Banking Hemantha Gunetilleke.

Discussing the Investor Forum Webinar, Fernando said: “At the beginning of the year, we decided to host our investor forum via webinar for the first time. This was in keeping with our commitment to digital technologies and harnessing the power of the emerging digital, paperless, electronic economy. We were extremely pleased with the results and thus this time too and for the foreseeable future, we will be conducting these forums via webinar. Investors and other interested parties from all over the world are able to tune in without having to take the time to be here in person, which is convenient for everyone. What sets our investor forums apart from others is that, while we do focus on financials, we also provide our investors with a well-rounded understanding of our strategic initiatives and accomplishments.”

Fernando added: “This time the Investor Forum webinar took an in-depth look at the financial performance of Nations Trust Bank during the first half of 2018. Thus far, it’s been a good year. We are showing healthy growth in earnings, having posted a PAT of Rs. 1.875 billion while enjoying good growth in business and improved operating margins. We have performed satisfactorily despite increased impairment charges slowing bottom line growth. Tightening liquidity in the market has also moderated credit growth and increased NPLs during the first half and this has affected the industry as a whole and not just us in isolation. Overall, there was plenty to discuss at this year’s webinar and we also received a good response in terms of interaction between investors and the bank’s panel.”  Nations Trust Bank PLC is amongst the top 30 business establishments in Sri Lanka, ranked by Business Today Magazine and ably providing a host of financial products and services to a wide range of customers. Nations Trust is also the bank behind Sri Lanka’s first fully digital bank, FriMi. 

The bank operates 93 branches across the country, boasting an ATM network covering 137 locations along with 23 locations of Cash Deposit Machines plus more than 3,500 ATMs on the Lanka Pay Network and is the issuer and sole acquirer for American Express Cards in Sri Lanka.