The 2013 Annual Report of the Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC has won two key awards at the Best Presented Annual Report Awards presented by the South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA), reaffirming the high quality of the Bank’s financial reporting standards.
Sri Lanka’s benchmark private bank was adjudged the winner in the ‘Private Sector Banks’ category and was the first runner-up for the SAARC Anniversary Award for Corporate Governance Disclosures, at this prestigious event in Bhubaneshwar, India, alongside the 37th Board Meeting of SAFA in early December.
In second and third place among private sector banks in the South Asian region were MCB Bank Limited of Pakistan and Prime Bank Limited of Bangladesh.
The SAFA awards, presented annually under different categories, are conferred on the basis of evaluations administered by the Federation’s Committee for Improvement in Transparency, Accountability and Governance, of the published annual reports of entries from South Asian countries.
“The Commercial Bank has been a consistent winner at the awards for many years, establishing itself as one of the best in the region for financial reporting,” the Bank’s Managing Director Mr. Jegan Durairatnam said.
“The Annual Report is by far the single most important document a public listed company produces, and we constantly look at going beyond simply conforming to international standards, to keep adding value through greater transparency in the presentation of our performance.”
Emphasising the importance of the right banking partner, the 2013 Annual Report of Commercial Bank was themed ‘Together to Prosperity.’ Its preamble set the tone with the words “Everyone has dreams for the future.
But sometimes the challenges of the journey ahead can loom larger than the goals we’ve set for ourselves, keeping our aspirations in the realm of dreams. The journey becomes far easier, though, when we have the right travelling companion.”
Ranked Sri Lanka’s ‘Bank of the Year’ by ‘The Banker’ and ‘Strongest Bank in Sri Lanka in 2014’ by The ‘Asian Banker’ magazines, Commercial Bank is the only Sri Lankan bank to be ranked among the Top 1000 banks of the world for four consecutive years.
The Bank was also rated the most valuable private sector brand in the country in 2014.
Commercial Bank operates a network of 239 branches and 605 ATMs in Sri Lanka and has won multiple awards as Sri Lanka’s best bank over several years, been adjudged one of the country’s 10 best corporate citizens by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce in 2013 and 2014, and has been rated the Most Respected Bank in Sri Lanka by LMD for the past 10 years.
It has also been the second Most Respected Corporate entity in the country overall for the past four years in the LMD rankings, and has been rated No 1 in Sri Lanka for Honesty in 2013 and 2014 by the magazine.