ComBank is Sri Lanka’s ‘Most Respected Bank’ for record 16 years

  • Ranked No 1 overall for Honesty and No 1 for Financial Performance in LMD’s 2020 rankings
  • Achieves the second place in main ranking of Most Respected Entities in the country

The Commercial Bank of Ceylon has been adjudged the ‘Most Respected Bank’ in Sri Lanka and been ranked Number One among all corporates in the country for ‘Honesty’ and ‘Financial Performance’ in the 2020 edition of the ‘Most Respected Entities in Sri Lanka’ just released by LMD magazine.

Sri Lanka’s leading private sector bank not only retained its position at the pinnacle of the Banking sector for the 16th successive year, it achieved the second place in the overall ranking. Commercial Bank was placed in the overall No 1 position of this list in 2009.

Announcing the latest rankings, LMD said the 10 most admired businesses in Sri Lanka in 2020 include diversified conglomerates, multinational consumer goods companies and leading players in apparel and telecommunications in the country.

“Commercial Bank has the honour of being perceived by its peers as the benchmark for financial performance and honesty,” LMD said.

“We are naturally elated to be ranked at the very top in two of the most important attributes – Honesty and Financial Performance and to remain the Most Respected Bank in Sri Lanka for the 16th year running,” Commercial Bank Managing Director Mr S. Renganathan said. “Earning and retaining the respect of our peers for such an extended period of time affirms in no uncertain terms that the perceptions of the Bank are backed by solid proof of its conformance to the highest expectations of all stakeholders.”

The 10 attributes by which companies are ranked for the LMD Most Respected Entities ranking are Financial Performance, Honesty, Quality Consciousness, Management Profile, Dynamism, Corporate Culture, Vision, Innovation, CSR and Nation-mindedness. Commercial Bank was ranked among the top five corporate entities in Sri Lanka in 2020 in seven of the 10 attributes.

LMD replaced the Olympic Ranking System it adopted in 2015 to record peer perceptions of corporate admiration, with a weighted ranking system in 2019, where the first mention of a corporate entity in each of the 10 areas of assessment was assigned a weight of five, the second a weight of three and the third a weight of one. The final rankings were based on the sum of weighted scores of the entities. The magazine said it followed this revised methodology in 2020 as well, using a sample of 800 respondents (managers and above) from listed companies. Commercial Bank achieved an overall score of 623 to be ranked the second Most Respected Entity in Sri Lanka.

The first Sri Lankan Bank to be listed among the Top 1000 Banks of the World and the only Sri Lankan bank to be so listed for ten years consecutively, Commercial Bank is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The Bank, which won more than 50 international and local awards in 2019, operates a network of 268 branches and 873 ATMs in Sri Lanka.

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 Pyi Taw; and the Maldives, where the Bank has a fully-fledged Tier I Bank with a majority stake.