National Development Bank PLC secured the 12th position at the Business Today top 40 corporates ranking published recently for 2021-2022. NDB impressively moved 9 ranks up from its previous ranking of 21 for 2020-2021.   

Business Today’s Top 40 is a much looked-forward to annual index in Sri Lanka’s corporate arena for which many corporates vie. The ranking recognizes the top corporate performers who reported positive financial growth amidst the turbulent situation of the country.   

As per Business Today, the ranking evaluations entailed analyzing the diverse portfolios of corporates, which provided a broader picture of profits and risks undertaken by winning corporates as they worked with resilience, passion, and dedication while gracefully embracing the challenges.

NDB rounded 2021 with exceptional performance in the financial as well as a host of other aspects despite the multiple challenges triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. In securing sound financial performance, the Bank posted a profit before all taxes of Rs. 10.3 billion in 2021, which was a notable growth of 12 percent over 2019 profits of Rs. 9.2 billion. 

NDB also intensely drove its digital strategy via NEOS, securing some industry first innovations such as virtual KYC enabling account opening from any part of the world, CRIB Reports and CRIB Scores downloadable from NOES and NEOS mobile app for SMEs. 

This earned NDB the commendation from Business Today as “under an altered landscape, NDB accelerated digitalization to drive better customer service, reduce complexity and optimize the operating model, pioneering several digital solutions”.

Commenting on the ranking, NDB’s Director/ CEO Dimantha Seneviratne stated that “NDB was relentless in our other initiatives of delivering value to various stakeholders. We continued our flagship imitative Sri Lanka Vanithabhimana in empowering Sri Lanka’s high performing females unabated by the pandemic. When physical evaluations were not possible given pandemic restrictions we swiftly moved to virtual modes in reaching out to and evaluating high performing females from across the country, and finally crowning the deserving winners. 

Our iconic climate action of Let’s Grow reforestation project of 3,000 trees across 5 hectares in Himbiliyakada Matale, financial and advisory support to exporters, innovators and entrepreneurs through NDB Jayagamu Sri Lanka, and community support in various forms of donations under the theme NDB Cares, all continued, delivering vital support to various stakeholder groups. Business Today is precise in its reference to NDB as a “socio-economically impactful bank” he stated. 

He further added that NDB was instrumental in attracting direct foreign investments in to the country via its partnership with the Norwegian Investment Fund for developing countries (Norfund) as the Bank’s largest shareholder, and the Development Finance Corporation of USA during 2021. Securing these investments at a time investor confidence over the country was challenged, was strong affirmation of NDB’s time-tested governance frameworks, sustained performance and potential for further growth, he concluded.