HNB adjudged Sri Lanka’s Bank of the year

HNB was recognised as the ‘Bank of the year 2012’ in Sri Lanka by the prestigious UK based ‘The Banker Magazine’ at a ceremony held in Intercontinental Park Lane Hotel London, recently.

The Bank of the Year Awards is an annual awards event recognising the top financial institutions in the world based on the performance of the previous year, the ability to gain strategic advantage and demonstration of continuous improvement. The Banker is a trusted source of global financial intelligence since 1926 owned by The Financial Times.

The prestigious Bracken award is named after Brandon Bracken the founding editor of ‘The Banker’ in 1926 and the Chairman of Financial Times from 1943-1958. Winning the Bracken award is a fitting accolade for the performances of the world’s top financial institutions.

The prestigious Bracken Award was received by HNB Chairperson Dr. Ranee Jayamaha and Managing Director/CEO Rajendra Theagarajah Managing amidst a gathering of senior bankers representing leading financial institutions of 149 countries around the globe.

On winning the award, Dr. Jayamaha said, “We are honoured to be recognised by the most renowned ‘The Banker’ magazine and this is a tribute to the efforts and dedication of the entire team at HNB. Also this affirms HNB’s clear focus, strong growth, sound policies and constant strive for improvement.”

Elaborating on the recognition, Theagarajah said, “HNB was able to successfully weather challenges from the increasingly unpredictable global environment and related impacts on the local economy by standing true to its ethos of a bank known for stability and safety in Sri Lanka.”

He also said this was achieved by focusing on four pillars. One, aligning our business strategy with the national vision to fully harness country’s post-war potential, two obtaining an international rating and bolstering capital adequacy ratios comfortably beyond regulatory minimum levels and three, significant investments in technology to strengthen our business model in terms of efficiency, centralisation and analytics and four, developing a robust electronic banking platform for effective deployment in the retail and corporate banking spaces.

“We are also proud to be recognised along with major national and international banks such as ICICI (India), UBS (Singapore), Mizuho (Japan), CIMB (Malaysia), Standard Chartered Bank (Bangladesh), Qatar National Bank (Qatar),Westpac (Australia) and Scotia Bank (Canada),” Theagarajah added.