ComBank Annual Report 2018 adjudged best in Sri Lanka

Commercial Bank Chairman Dharma Dheerasinghe, Deputy Chairman Preethi Jayawardena and representatives of the corporate and senior management with the awards presented to the Bank at the CA Sri Lanka Annual Report awards

• Wins 4 more Golds, including Best among Banking Institutions for 15th year at CA Sri Lanka awards

The Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC emphatically demonstrated its superiority in financial reporting, winning for the 10th time, the Cyril Gardiner Memorial Trophy – the ‘Holy Grail’ of the Annual Report awards presented by CA Sri Lanka – for the best annual report by a listed company in Sri Lanka for 2018.

In an all-Gold performance, Sri Lanka’s benchmark private bank also won the Edmund J. Cooray Memorial Trophy for the Best Annual Report among Banking Institutions, the Gold Award for Management Commentary, the Gold Award in the Corporate Governance Disclosure category and the Gold Award for Integrated Reporting in the Best Disclosure on Business Model category.

This is the 15th year that an annual report of Commercial Bank has been adjudged the best among banking institutions in Sri Lanka and the 15th occasion that the Bank has been ranked among the top three companies overall for financial reporting.

“Producing award-winning annual reports has become something of a habit at Commercial Bank,” the Bank’s Managing Director S. Renganathan said. “This reaffirms the utmost priority the Bank accords to transparency and disclosure and its unwavering commitment to best practices in shareholder relations. Many people work tirelessly to adequately articulate this commitment through our annual report, and these awards are a fitting reward for their efforts.”

Now in its 55th year, the CA Sri Lanka awards program recognises 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 Sri Lanka Annual Reports competition is considered a platform which encourages excellence in the presentation of information covering transparency, social accountability and good governance among diverse Sri Lankan business entities in the field of financial reporting.

Themed “In sync with the future – where banking matters rather than banks,” Commercial Bank’s 455-page 2018 annual report is a carbon neutral document and is also available on the Bank’s website.

The only Sri Lankan Bank to be ranked among the world’s top 1000 banks for nine years consecutively, Commercial Bank operates a network of 267 branches and 856 ATMs in Sri Lanka. The Bank won over 40 international and local awards in 2018, has received more than 30 awards to date this year, and been ranked among the 10 Most Admired Companies in Sri Lanka in 2019. 

Commercial Bank’s overseas operations encompass Bangladesh, where the Bank operates 19 outlets; Myanmar, where it has a Representative Office in Yangon and a Microfinance company in Nay PyiTaw; and the Maldives, where the Bank has a fully-fledged Tier I Bank with a majority stake.