Commercial Bank bags Gold for Best Annual Report in Banking Sector for 12th time

The Commercial Bank of Ceylon was awarded the Edmund J. Cooray Memorial Trophy for the Best Annual Report among banking institutions, the Gold award for Management Commentary, the Silver award for Corporate Governance Disclosure, the Bronze award for the Best Annual Report overall across all sectors and the Bronze for CSR Reporting at the 2015 Annual Report Awards of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka). 

With these five awards, Commercial Bank became the most-awarded Bank of the night, reaffirming the Bank’s commitment to transparency and good governance. Since 2001, Commercial Bank’s Annual Report has been adjudged the overall best in Sri Lanka nine times and this edition of the awards takes the number of occasions the Bank has won the award for the best Annual Report in the banking sector to 12.

“The Annual Report is the easily the most important document that any public listed company produces, but its significance is particularly high in the financial services sector, where accurate and comprehensive disclosures are vital,” Commercial Bank’s Managing Director/CEO Jegan Durairatnam said. “We believe that as the largest private bank in the country, it is our responsibility to be a benchmark for financial reporting. Our 12th Gold Award in the Banking Sector and winning the Gold Award for Management Commentary, which is a pivotal award for a financial institution, is a fitting recognition of the efforts of the team that compiled the annual report, and is an endorsement of the bank’s continuing commitment to transparency.”

Themed ‘Combanking’ the award-winning 2014 Annual Report of Commercial Bank is a 432-page volume. The HTML web and mobile versions of the report can be accessed at www.combank.lk

The CASL awards reflect effectiveness in communication of financial and non-financial information to stakeholders and strict compliance with legislative requirements and accepted accounting best practices. In evaluating reports for the awards, CA Sri Lanka looks at the organisation’s ability to effectively communicate organisational objectives, highlights, performance, personnel and management to an intended audience. Held since 1964, the CA Annual Reports competition is considered a platform which encourages excellence in the presentations of information covering transparency, social accountability and good governance among diverse Sri Lankan business entities in the field of financial reporting.

The only Sri Lankan bank to be ranked among the Top 1000 banks of the world for five consecutive years, Commercial Bank operates a network of 246 branches and 618 ATMs in Sri Lanka. The bank was ranked the most valuable private sector brand in Sri Lanka in 2014 and has also won multiple awards as Sri Lanka’s best bank from a number of international publications over several years. The bank was adjudged one of Sri Lanka’s 10 best corporate citizens by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce in 2013 and 2014.

Commercial Bank’s overseas operations encompass Bangladesh, where the bank operates 18 branches and Myanmar, where it has a Representative Office in Yangon. In September 2015, the bank received regulatory approval for the establishment of a fully-fledged Tier I Bank in the Republic of Maldives.