Sampath Bank honoured with prestigious ‘The Banker Award’

The London based Financial Times honoured Sampath Bank with the prestigious ‘The Banker Award’ for the fourth time in recognition of the bank’s steady performance during the past year amidst challenging circumstances. Celebrated as the ‘Oscars’ of the banking industry, The Banker Award rewards prudent risk approach, strong management and excellence in banking practices.The recognition criteria for this award cover a comprehensive range of banking practices while the evaluation process has always been stringent. 

“We are proud of this recognition from a global entity which is a testimony to our strength as a bank and the excellence of our service standards. We owe this success to the support of our shareholders, the trust that our customers have in us and last but not least the commitment of our staff. Thus, we dedicate this prestigious award to our staff and customers who deliver weighty support to our success. As a truly Sri Lankan bank we will continue to aim for excellence in our growth and performance while maintaining the balance between stakeholder expectations and our responsibility to the community,” said Sampath Bank PLC Managing Director Aravinda Perera, commenting on this achievement. 

Sampath Bank is one of the largest private commercial banks in Sri Lanka, which has been in operation for more than 25 years. The bank has an asset base of more than Rs. 450 billion that generates high returns to its shareholders and is renowned in the Sri Lankan banking industry as the initiator of various innovative trends in terms of Information Technology related to banking services. 

Sampath Bank was responsible for introducing the novel concept of uni-banking, in which all service outlets are connected, facilitating customers to transact with any outlet in the network. Since inception, Sampath has become a fully computerised bank and is also the first bank in the Sri Lankan industry to introduce Debit Cards and the first Master Credit Card to the market. 

With its strong customer base as one of its key strengths, Sampath Bank delivers its services through 224 service outlets that operate island wide and the well-spread ATMs network. Further, the bank’s ‘Sampath vishwa’ – online banking (via internet and mobile app) and other mobile based virtual banking products have been gaining immense popularity due to their innovative nature and user friendliness. Sampath Bank is also focusing on expanding its service outlets in regional locations and as the first step in this direction, opened its representative office in Myanmar recently in 2015.   

As a national bank, Sampath Bank has made CSR a key part of its business ethics with CSR policies revolving around social projects attuned towards society’s needs. Over the years, the bank has spearheaded numerous CSR projects based on its ‘5E CSR Model’ which focuses on Education for Development; Empowerment of Community; Ethics and Values; Environment Protection and Conservation and Entrepreneurship Development. 

“This is the fourth time that we’ve been honoured with The Banker Award. This time we have more cause for celebration than ever before since this honour followed what was a challenging period for the industry,” added Aravinda Perera. 

Sampath Bank achieved a strong profit growth in 2014 compared to the year 2013 and the same momentum can be seen in 2015. In addition, Sampath Bank also achieved a considerable asset, advances and deposit growth in the year 2014 and during the nine months up to September 2015.