Commercial Bank among World’s Top 1000 Banks for 7th consecutive year

Thursday, 6 July 2017 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Commercial Bank of Ceylon has been ranked among the Top 1000 Banks of the World for a seventh consecutive year in 2017, and moved up 19 places in this prestigious global list compiled by ‘The Banker’ magazine of the UK.

Commercial Bank is the only Sri Lankan bank to be in the Top 1000 ranking for seven years running and is the only bank to record a double digit upward movement in the 2017 rankings.

The Top 1000 Banks of the World are ranked on the basis of Tier I capital, assets, capital assets ratio, pre-tax profits, return on capital, return on assets, BIS (Basel) Capital ratio, NPL to total loans, loans to assets ratio, risk weighted assets (RWA) to total assets (TA) ratio and cost income ratio.

The top four positions in the 2017 ranking remain unchanged from the previous year and are held by ICBC (China), China Construction Bank, JP Morgan Chase (USA) and Bank of China. Bank of America has moved up one place to take the fifth spot in the latest ranking.

“Consistency in performance is a paramount virtue in banking, and our ability to not only be ranked seven years in a row, but to move up 19 places during a period of challenge, speaks volumes for our mettle,” Commercial Bank’s Managing Director/CEO Jegan Durairatnam said. “Being included in this list is an affirmation of the Bank’s strength and stability as well as an endorsement of the quality of its people, at all levels.”

For FY 2016, Commercial Bank reported Assets of Rs 1.012 trillion, Gross Income of Rs 93.143 billion, Net Profit of Rs 14.513 billion, a Deposits base of Rs 739.563 billion and a Loan Book of Rs 633.391 billion.Capital adequacy ratios stood at 11.56% for Tier I and 15.90% for total (Tier I + Tier II), both well above the Basel II requirements.

The Top 1000 World Banks ranking is compiled from a database of over 5,000 of the world’s biggest banks and is acknowledged by the global financial community as the definitive guide to bank rankings and analysis. Begun in 1970, the ranking is widely used all year round by senior bankers, corporate treasurers, corporate financiers, the professional services community and many others in their day to day decisions relating to banking.

Sri Lanka’s largest and most profitable private bank and the country’s most-awarded financial institution, Commercial Bank plays a significant role in the national economy. The bank accounted for 4.31% of the total market capitalisation of the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) in 2016 with a market capitalisation of $ 790 million at the end of the year. The bank is the largest lender in Sri Lanka to SMEs, having disbursed Rs 952 billion to the sector over the past five years, and channels 17.82% of the country’s export volumes and 8.36% of its import volumes.

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.