The Commercial Bank of Ceylon was declared the ‘Best Trade Finance Bank in Sri Lanka’ for the third year in a row at the 2020 Asian Banker Transaction Awards recently, in recognition of its achievements in cash management, payments, and trade finance.

This prestigious accolade was conferred on Commercial Bank following a thorough evaluation by the magazine with an audit-based approach. The rigorous selection process took place over several months and involved feedback and interviews with all constituents in a position to comment on the candidates. It was anchored by a panel of global leaders and subject matter experts as advisors.

A survey of domestic institutions that use Commercial Bank’s trade finance services, corroborated by interviews and an evaluation of changes in the market share of competitors, the size and strategic importance of the transaction business as a percentage of the Bank’s business, the contribution of the transaction business to total income, the growing annuity value of the business, core and recurrent customer base and the benefits of processing efficiencies and cost management that are passed on to the Bank’s clients were among the determining factors that led to the Bank winning this award.

Asian Banker also looked at the unique features of the Bank’s fee-based products and services that are not dependent on credit as the primary relationship and the value they provide to clients, and the key achievements of the Bank in the year under review before bestowing the ‘Best Trade Finance Bank in Sri Lanka’ title on Commercial Bank.

Some of the products and services offered by Commercial Bank that contributed towards winning this prestigious award include the online Sri Lanka Ports Authority Payment Gateway, the ‘Biz Club’ for SME clients engaged in trade, door-to-door delivery of Letters of Credit, import documents and guarantees, financing of offshore business operations of local companies, and organisation of awareness programmes for trade-related clients. Other innovative product offerings introduced in the year to support trade finance operations were provision of foreign exchange market and economic updates, simplifying and providing online exchange rates on trade deals, and expediting the credit evaluation and approvals process by setting up a separate unit.

The winners for the ‘Best Trade Finance Bank’ awards are determined through a combination of surveys, interviews, and field research by The Asian Banker’s research staff assessing over 200 submissions from financial institutions across the Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa. The findings of the research are published in a neutral manner, with a scorecard outlining how the different domestic and global players feature in them.

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 100^th anniversary this year. The Bank, which won more than 50 international and local awards in 2019, operates a network of 268 branches and 875 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.

                                                                                                                                                                                                 Photo caption: Commercial Bank Deputy General Manager – Corporate Banking Mr Naveen Sooriyarachchi with the ‘Best Trade Finance Bank in Sri Lanka’ award from Asian Banker magazine