Each year, the National Development Bank PLC (NDB) has been crowned with prestige, further enhancing its stature in the banking world.

Similarly, NDB conferred with another set of awards and accolades presented from both local and international organisations.

The latter part of the year 2017 was an important phase the bank went through, especially considering the number of awards the bank won. NDB was crowned with three awards including a Gold award at the CA Annual Report Awards 2017 for the bank’s 2016 Annual Report ‘Unlocking Our Potential to Unleash Yours’. The bank was thus recognised with the Gold award for best corporate governance disclosures across all categories, Silver award for the best reports in the banking institutions category and the Bronze award for corporate sustainability disclosures across all categories.

The bank was also recognised as one of the ‘Top Ten Corporate Citizens’ at the Best Corporate Citizen Sustainability Awards 2017. This title is the highest award a corporate entity can receive for its sustainable business practices and CSR initiatives.

NDB also emerged Runners-up under the banking category at the National Business Excellence Awards 2017, hosted by the National Chamber of Commerce.
NDB has once again been ranked within the Top 30 best performing listed corporates of Sri Lanka for 2016/2017, by the Business Today Magazine. Institutions were selected on the basis of their performance recorded during the financial year 2016/2017, further proving NDB’s dedication towards exemplary service.

NDB was adjudged ‘Domestic Retail Bank of the Year - Sri Lanka’ and ‘SME Bank of the Year - Sri Lanka’ for the fifth consecutive year at the Asian Banking and Finance (ABF) Retail Banking Awards 2017. NDB also collected a third award for Mobile Banking Initiative of the Year - Sri Lanka. In addition the bank won two awards at Asian Banking and Finance Wholesale Banking Awards 2017 for Cash Management Bank of the Year for the second consecutive year and Sri Lanka Domestic Project Finance Bank of the Year for the third consecutive year.

It is not always that a Sri Lankan bank is awarded for such excellence by international organisations. However, NDB managed to surpass these boundaries and emerge on the top. The bank was felicitated by Global Banking and Finance Review with three awards for Best Investor Relations Bank Sri Lanka 2017, Best Mobile Banking Application Sri Lanka 2017 and Best SME Bank Sri Lanka 2017. The awards signify the bank’s exceptional feats in the local banking and financial industry. NDB has been able to successfully capitalise on the bank’s strong history of being a development bank and has transformed itself to a strong fully-fledged commercial bank in Sri Lanka within a short period of time.

In addition, the bank was also crowned Best Overall Local Bank in South Asia for BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) at the Asiamoney New Silk Road Finance Awards 2017.

The mobile banking app, which was introduced not long ago, was also praised for its innovation and effectiveness. NDB emerged winner for the ’Best use of Mobile’ under Financial Sector at the SLT ZeroOne Awards. The award category ‘Best Use of Mobile’ entailed the effective use of the platform and had to showcase the innovation and the forward thinking concept behind the execution whether it is engaging content, useful application, services or utilities. The judging criteria included the ‘execution’, which involves how the platform has been used/leveraged to meet the set objectives, ‘innovation’ which showcases the revolutionary concept behind the use of mobile in the campaign and ‘outcome’ where the KPIs are justified against the use of mobile objectives.

Meanwhile, NDB was also crowned Runner-up for the ’Best Mobile Payment Application of the Year’ at the LankaPay Technnovation Awards 2017.

NDB was crowned with the Gold award for best investor relations at the CFA Sri Lanka Capital Market Awards 2017. The entities in the Colombo Stock Exchange were shortlisted on the strength of IR practices and responsiveness and were evaluated along the criteria of accessibility to management, quality, transparency and fairness in disclosure, consistency of the IR function in all conditions.

The number of awards NDB has won throughout the year is further proof that NDB will always strive to make the customer proud to be a part of the bank’s success. NDB’s motto (Our Commitment. Your Success.) is not to be taken in vain, because the bank will always aspire to do the best for its customers.