NSB Annual Report gets global recognition

Dr. Vijith Kannangara, Chairman Smart Media (right) presents a plaque to Mr. K.D. Upali Gunaratne, Chairman NSB. Also present from left are Mr. H. M. Hennayake Bandara, DGM Finance, Planning & Asset Management and Mr. S. H. Piyasiri, General Manager of NSB.

The National Savings Bank and Smart Media held a simple felicitation ceremony at the Bank’s Headquarters to celebrate NSB’s Annual Report for 2006 winning a prestigious International ARC Award in New York recently.

The ARC Awards, considered the largest, most respected and most prestigious of the more than one hundred International Annual Report Award competitions, was held for the 21st year this year. Nearly 2000 Annual Reports from around the world were submitted for evaluation at the ARCs this year.

Speaking at the ceremony, Mr. Upali Gunaratne, Chairman NSB congratulated the teams at NSB and Smart Media for their efforts in producing an excellent Annual Report for the Bank. He urged them to continue the good work and keep up the continuous improvement. General Manager NSB, Mr. S. H. Piyasiri endorsed these sentiments at the ceremony that was also attended by the Board of Directors of NSB.
Dr. Vijith Kannangara, Chairman Smart Media speaking on the occasion said that these international awards are certainly motivating and would drive his company to vie for even greater standards.

However, awards are not the bottom line he said and that they would always keep in the mind the specific task to be accomplished by the Annual Report each year… and the successful accomplishment of that task would be the greatest award that Smart Media would aspire for.
Mr. Hennayake Bandara, DGM Finance, Planning & Asset Management of NSB stated that NSB’s Annual Report had already set the benchmark for Public Sector enterprises by winning the regional top award in this category at the South Asian Federation of Accountants Awards 2006 in addition to the category award at the Institute of Chartered Accountants Awards in the same year.

The National Savings Bank is perhaps the strongest bank in Sri Lanka. It is the only local bank to have an AAA rating from an international rating agency and has enjoyed this rating for many years now. In addition, the Bank has one of the largest customer bases, deposit bases and an unmatched island wide reach.

The Bank also enjoys a very high level of public confidence and trust and offers a warm and friendly customer service. Thus, the illustrative theme of the Report brought out the Bank as a gentle giant. The Chairman’s Message and the General Manager’s Message discussed how the Bank was transitioning from a purely savings bank to a retail bank.