Commercial Bank Group Chief Human Resources Officer Isuru Tillakawardana (centre) and Human Resources Department Chief Manager Pushpa Chandrasiri accept award from CPM Founder and President Prof. Lakshman R. Watawala 

The Institute of Chartered Professional Managers of Sri Lanka (CPM) has ranked Commercial Bank of Ceylon among the 10 best-managed companies in Sri Lanka in the two years affected by the global pandemic.

Sri Lanka’s benchmark private bank was recently presented one of the prestigious ‘Top Ten’ awards at CPM’s Best Management Practices Company Awards 2022, themed ‘Back to Business in the New Normal’. 

The institute called for applications from corporates in Sri Lanka inviting them to showcase their best management practices, which demonstrate resilience in bringing their respective organisations back to business during 2020 or 2021. CPM required applicants to present a desk review of the synopsis of the novel and value-adding best practices during these years, followed by a presentation to a panel of judges. Both were considered when selecting the Top 10 companies. 

The synopsis Commercial Bank submitted outlined the stand of the bank before the pandemic-necessitated management practices were implemented, the innovative practices that were executed thereafter, their contribution towards revitalising the business and the measurable outputs and outcomes among others aspects. 

Some of the best HR practices the bank listed in its submission included adapting alternative work arrangements and providing food, lodging and transport for all mission-critical staff throughout the lockdowns to ensure continued banking operations, assembling alternative operational sites equipped with infrastructure facilities and IT systems with the support of the bank’s IT, logistics and premises and business continuity management units and communicating with employees via an automated call-tree system. 

Commercial Bank was also among the first institutions in the country to install permanent glass partitions at branches and was proactive in the early acquisition of personal protective equipment for employees.
The bank’s best IT operational practices include identifying an industry-leading remote access solution to facilitate remote working for its Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Maldives operations and providing 180 simultaneous voice call channels for its card centres and digital banking call centres to cater to the increase in call volumes during the lockdowns. 

In SME lending, Commercial Bank introduced a new SME Credit Scoring Model with a simplified evaluation process and continued to improve service delivery standards by further developing digital tools. 
These best practices resulted in impressive growth in business volumes and financial indicators for Commercial Bank in both 2020 and 2021, even as the bank continued to enhance its customer relief programmes to emerge as the leading lender for COVID-19 relief among private sector banks in Sri Lanka. Additionally, the Finance Ministry confirmed that Commercial Bank was the biggest lender to Sri Lanka’s SME sector in 2020 among all state-owned, private and specialised banks in the country.