HNB sweeps Asian Banker Transaction Banking Awards 2018 with 3 national awards

From left: The Asian Banker Research Analyst Siddharth Chandani, HNB Relationship Manager – Corporate Banking Winston Joseph, The Asian Banker International Resource Director Bill Chua, HNB Chief Manager, Corporate Banking Vijaya Vidyasagara, HNB Assistant General Manager, Treasury and Markets Arjuna Abeygunasekara, HNB  Solutions Manager, Payments and Cash Management Ramesh Gunawardena, and The Asian Banker International Resource Director Mathew Welch, at the Asian Banker Transaction Banking Awards 2018

Sri Lanka’s most innovative bank, HNB PLC once again sealed its reputation as being the leading private sector commercial bank in the country, winning resounding acclaim at the recently concluded Asian Banker Transaction Banking Awards 2018, held in Beijing, China.

In total, HNB won three country awards, including Best Cash Management Bank, Best Payment Bank and Best Foreign Exchange Bank in Sri Lanka, further consolidating its leadership position within the domestic banking industry. 

Attracting participation from banks around the globe, Asian Banker Transaction Banking Awards 2018 is amongst the most prestigious global awards to felicitate outstanding achievements in innovation and service delivery across cash management, payments, and trade finance. 

HNB DGM – Corporate Banking Ruwan Manatunga commented, “All three of the categories which HNB dominated at this year’s awards are businesses where the bank has excelled in providing its customers solutions that are best in the market and which have raised the service standard of the industry. This has been accomplished through concerted investments into cutting edge technologies aimed at ensuring the bank’s product depth and service offering are world class.” 

He further emphasised, “The bank is extremely proud of its skilled and dedicated teams, whose passion and hard-work to outperform the market enabled the bank to excel at this award ceremony. He concluded by stating that the bank will further invest in these businesses in the years to come to support its customers in providing best in class banking solutions.” 

HNB AGM – Treasury and Markets Arjuna Abeygunasekara stated, “The depth of our liquidity, the strength of our balance sheet and our commitment to investment in technology has enabled HNB Treasury services to deliver value across pricing, execution, post-trade services and client service. Over the past year in particular, we have significantly increased connectivity and real-time processing capabilities which has enabled the bank to rapidly expand its client base and market share by leveraging on new products and services that are aimed at providing utmost value to our customers.” 

 This year’s awards were conducted on an audit-based approach, the evaluation of which included financial performance, sales capabilities, client satisfaction, technological capabilities, and deployment of best practices. 

Four representatives from HNB were in China at Asian Banker Transaction Banking Awards 2018 namely, HNB Assistant General Manager – Treasury and Markets Arjuna Abeygunasekara, Chief Manager – Corporate Banking Vijaya Vidyasagara, Relationship Manager – Corporate Banking Winston Joseph and Solutions Manager – Payments and Cash Management Ramesh Gunawardena.  

HNB is the first local bank to offer a web-based, fully integrated electronic Payments and Cash Management (PCM) platform – HNB Online. The bank leveraging on this state of the art platform along with a dedicated business team that is considered the best in the industry, within a short period of time has been able to make significant strides in securing a leadership position in cash management, which was previously a captive business of the multinational banks. 

Operating across 251 customer centres island-wide, HNB PLC is Sri Lanka’s largest private sector commercial bank, having been declared Bank of the Year 2017 by the prestigious British financial magazine The Banker, in recognition of its performance as the most profitable banking group and for introducing unprecedented innovations to the domestic banking industry. 

HNB was adjudged ‘Best Retail Bank 2018 in Sri Lanka’ for the 10th time while being recognised as having the ‘Best Micro finance Product 2017 in the Asia Pacific Region’. 

HNB is the first local Bank in Sri Lanka to receive an international rating on par with the sovereign from Moody’s Investor Services while maintaining a national long term rating of AA - (lka) from Fitch Ratings Lanka Ltd., and amongst the top 1000 banks in the world by The Banker.