'Bank of the year 2009':

Sampath Bank wins award

Sampath Bank has reached another milestone by winning another global accolade. "The Banker" magazine of Financial Times - London has awarded "Bank of the Year 2009" to Sampath Bank, a media release from the bank said.

The recognition of Sampath Bank being named "Bank of the Year 2009" in Sri Lanka by the world's longest running international banking title is clear testament to its outstanding performance and financial stability.

As a new player, which entered the market 22 years ago, the Bank faced many challenges and crossed many milestones, during its brief history. It earned a reputation for initiating many revolutionary changes in the local bank industry in terms of IT. The concept of Uni-banking, in which all service outlets being connected, facilitating customers to transact with any outlets in the network, was a novel experiment in the local banking industry, at the time Sampath launched it.

Sampath, a fully computerized bank began setting trends for many others. Sampath was also the first Bank to introduce ATMs and Credit Cards in the local banking industry.

The rapid but well planned expansion drive was another key phenomenon of Sampath. Being recognized as an emerging and dynamic player, Sampath continued to maintain this image by expanding into all potential areas in the country, offering new products and financial solutions and growing at a rapid pace. The Bank has over 125 branches and 177 ATMs throughout the country. The bank is also the single largest shareholder of a leading financial company in Bangladesh.

Sampath Bank's current vision is to position itself as a National Bank in Sri Lanka providing excellent service throughout the country to all sectors of the economy. The Bank is also repositioning itself as the 'Bank for Deposits', in the country, which offers value added and tailomade deposit products to all segments of the market, covering all stages in the lifecycle of depositors.

The Bank has embarked on a branch expansion program in the newly liberated Northern and Eastern provinces, under which a new branch was opened in Jaffna, in addition to 11 branches, opened in the Eastern province. The total number of new branches already opened and to be opened in 2009 will be about 19.

Sampath introduced several innovative deposit products and financial solutions to the market with several novel features, enabling the Bank to maintain a significant growth in business volumes during the recent past. The success in the Bank's local deposit mobilization tasks also helped better management of the bank's liquidity, when the international credit lines were drying up, due to the world financial crisis, the release said.

The recent past was not a very conducive period for business, due to internal and external adverse factors, export markets shrunk with the world recession, slowing down the domestic credit demand.