Sampath Bank wins ‘Bank of the Year 2009’ award

The trendsetter in the Sri Lankan banking sector has reached another milestone in its celebrated history by winning another glorious global accolade. “The Banker” magazine of Financial Times - London has awarded “Bank of the Year 2009” to the pioneering leader Sampath Bank.
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.
The pioneering trendsetter
As a new player, which entered the market just 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 became a fully computerised bank from day one, which began setting trends for many others to follow. Sampath was also the first bank to introduce ATM’s and credit cards in the local banking industry.
The rapid but well planned expansion drive was another key phenomenon of Sampath. Being recognised 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 now has over 125 branches and 177 ATMs located throughout the country. The bank is also the single largest shareholder of a leading financial company in Bangladesh.

Bank for deposits
Sampath Bank’s current vision is to position itself as a National Bank in Sri Lanka to the true sense of its word, providing excellent service throughout the country to all sectors of the economy. Further, the Bank is repositioning itself as the ‘Bank for deposits’, in the country, which offers value added and tailor made deposit products to all segments of the market, covering all stages in the life cycle of depositors.
The bank has embarked on an ambitious branch expansion programme in the newly liberated Northern and Eastern province, under which a new branch was opened in Jaffna, the provincial capital of the North, 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, which maybe the largest number of new branches opened by any bank in the year 2009.
Similarly, Sampath introduced several innovative new 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 mobilisation tasks also helped better management of the banks liquidity, when the international credit lines were drying up, due to the world financial crisis.

Continuous growth
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. Nevertheless, the Bank was able to continuously improve its profitability during this difficult period, recording a profit growth of 34% and 32%, respectively in 2008 and period up to September 2009. Most of the key financial ratios, such as Return on Assets, Return on Equity and Earning per Share continued to improve during this period, enabling Sampath to become a much stronger player.
It is the objective of Sampath to continue with its growth momentum in future, in terms of business volumes, profitability and becoming a driving force for new Sri Lanka, which is currently full of new hopes, after the 28 year war ending recently.
This global affirmation surely will help Sampath Bank to make a far better contribution to the prosperity of our nation in the years to come.