Sampath Bank honoured for unwavering CSR efforts at JASTECA CSR Awards 2016

Sampath Bank Senior Deputy General Manager – Consumer Banking Tharaka Ranwala receiving the award from Ambassador of Japan Kenichi Suganuma

Trailblazing through the banking industry of Sri Lanka with unique CSR initiatives and sustainability efforts that ensure the wellbeing of the country and its citizens, Sampath Bank was recognised with a Bronze award at the JASTECA CSR Awards 2015, held on 7 March at Galadari Hotel, Colombo. 

Sampath Bank was honoured for its unwavering efforts and commitment towards uplifting the livelihood development of the citizens of the nation presented in the success stories of the bank’s initiative – ‘Sampath Saviya’. Built on the concept of its entrepreneurship development program, Sampath Saviya consists of a series of workshops to assist Small and Medium scale Entrepreneurs (SMEs) in developing their businesses. Since the launch of the Sampath Saviya it has witnessed a significant number of budding small and medium scale entrepreneurs build up their own businesses with great success and knowledge through the program. 

Remarking on this achievement, Sampath Bank PLC Senior Deputy General Manager – Consumer Banking and Pillar Head of CSR Tharaka Ranwala said, “As one of the biggest banking institutions in Sri Lanka, we at Sampath Bank possess a whole heartedness to deliver real and quantifiable value to every stakeholder. It is etched into the core of Sampath Bank to present a promising future to all the citizens of Sri Lanka, with a genuine drive to create meaningful development that challenges conventional beliefs and advocates a much wider context of change for the nation. As such, we are greatly honoured to have received this award of recognition as the team at Sampath Bank always strive to ensure that our activities are in concurrence towards the needs of the society and well-being of the country and its economy.” 

JASTECA CSR Awards, conducted by The Japan-Sri Lanka Technical and Cultural Association (JASTECA), is a flagship program of JASTECA Sri Lanka that identifies best performers in the country who excel in the practice of Corporate Social Responsibility. In its recent efforts of recognising unsurpassed performers of CSR, JASTECA declared a renewed set of guiding principles to inspire businesses and other organisations to have a wide-ranging CSR policy which defines areas of concern and initiatives to improve relations with the people and environments affected by business operations. 

JASTECA further encourages business organisations to go beyond stakeholder and statutory obligations, in order to fulfil the aspirations toward the triple bottom line in a sustainable manner. 

Sampath Bank envelopes its CSR initiatives with a ‘5E CSR Model’ which focuses on Education for Development; Empowerment of Community, Ethics and Values, Environment Protection and Conservation and Entrepreneurship Development. In recognition of its unwavering CSR efforts in the past, Sampath Bank has been honoured with a Gold Award for ‘CSR Brand of the Year’ at the SLIM Brand Excellence Awards 2015 and earned the title as ‘Overall Best Corporate Citizen’ at the Best Corporate Citizen Sustainability Awards 2015 presented by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce. 

Sampath Bank further broke ground in the year 2015 for pioneering unique CSR initiatives that won prestigious awards for ‘Best Use of CSR Practices in Banking and Finance’, and a category award for ‘Poverty Alleviation’ at the fifth Asia Best CSR Practices Awards by CMO Asia, category award for ‘Health Promotion’ at Asia Responsible Entrepreneurship Awards 2015 by Enterprise Asia as well as a Silver Award for its ‘Overall Excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting’ at the Annual Report Awards 2015 by CA Sri Lanka.

These achievements are a strong depiction of Sampath Bank’s undying efforts to work cognisant to both individual and collective needs of communities, as the bank strives to recognise the core economic barriers that the citizens face. The JASTECA CSR Award is further a reiteration of Sampath Bank’s drive to push the boundaries of the banking industry in order to fulfil its aspirations towards creating an immensely positive impact to the environment, society and the economy whilst engaging in their main business.