Asiamoney affirms COMBANK ‘Best Domestic Bank’ and ‘Best Digital Bank’ in Sri Lanka

• Only Sri Lankan bank to win two awards from prestigious magazine

The Commercial Bank of Ceylon has annexed two more prestigious international awards, being adjudged the ‘Best Domestic Bank’ and the ‘Best Digital Bank’ in Sri Lanka by Asiamoney, considered the most authoritative voice for the banking industry in the Asia Pacificregion.

Asiamoney’s Best Domestic Bank award recognises Commercial Bank’s exceptional performance in FY 2016, which it ended as the largest private bank in the country in terms of assets, and as the most profitable, posting the highest net profit among all private sector banks in Sri Lanka.

Also considered were Commercial Bank’s position as thebank with the highest market capitalisation on the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE); the bank with the best CASA (Current Account – Savings Account) ratio amongst all banks in the country; the lowest Cost-Income ratio among private banks and several other key indicators including interest income growth.

The Best Digital Bank award acknowledges the pioneering role Commercial Bank has played in bringing technology-enabled products and services to customers by leveraging transformational trends in technology to provide digital banking channels to virtually all customers.

“As the largest private Bank in Sri Lanka, we are constantly striving to find ways to improve the value created for our customers,” Commercial Bank Managing Director/CEO Jegan Durairatnam said. “We are very pleased to win these two awards, particularly because they relate to two key areas of our own focus – financial performance and technology-enabled banking.”

In the sphere of financial performance, Commercial Bank ended 2016 with the momentous feat of becoming the first private bank in the country to surpass Rs. 1 trillion in assets and had the largest deposits (Rs. 739.5 billion) and advances (Rs. 633.3 billion) portfolios in the private sector. The bank’s profit after tax of Rs. 14.5 billion made it the most profitable private bank in Sri Lanka.

In the sphere of technology-enabled banking, Commercial Bank expanded self-service banking by commissioning five new Automated Banking Centres at which customers can access an extensive list of services entirely on their own, installed 29 more Cash Deposit Machines (CDMs) and 10 Cash Recycler machines in 2016. The CDMs completely eliminate the use of paper and are therefore an important step in eco-friendly operations.

The bank also achieved a significant reduction in the use of paper by actively promoting the migration of customers from traditional banking channels to digital platforms such as mobile and online banking and its sophisticated ‘e-Passbook’ launched in 2016.

Additionally, Commercial Bank enabled the card-less withdrawal function across its ATM network country-wide in 2016, adding a new level of convenience for customers. The bank’s ATMs enable automated bill payments to more than 25 institutions in addition to the cash withdrawal facility.

The 2017 Asiamoney awards won by Commercial Bank were preceded by the Global Finance ‘Best Bank in Sri Lanka 2017’ award,the award for ‘Developing Sustainable Strategies’at the Global Sustainability and CSR Excellence and Leadership Awards in Mumbai, India, and the award for Best Internet Bank in Sri Lanka presented by Global Banking & Finance Review of the UK.

The only Sri Lankan bank to be ranked among the Top 1000 banks of the world for six years consecutively, Commercial Bank operates a network of 256 branches and 658 ATMs in Sri Lanka. The Bank has won multiple awards as Sri Lanka’s Best Bank, Best Trade Bank, Strongest Bank, Most Respected Bank from a number of local and international institutions and publications over several years and has also been adjudged one of Sri Lanka’s 10 best corporate citizens by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce for several years.

Commercial Bank’s overseas operations encompass Bangladesh, where the bank operates 19 outlets, Myanmar, where it has a Representative Office in Yangon, the Maldives, where the Bank opened a fully-fledged Tier I Bank in September 2016 and Italy, where the Bank launched its own money transfer service in November 2016.