Sri Lanka

Long term, this will be a keenly contested award. Local and foreign banks are competing hard to gain access to, or retain the loyalty of, the island’s leading corporates, while a sleepy local investment banking scene stands to benefit from Colombo International Financial City, a financial hub taking shape off the capital’s coast. But NDB Investment Bank, a division of National Development Bank, with SLRs110 billion ($710 million) in assets under management, is the clear winner in this category, and may remain so for years to come.

Commercial Bank first opened its doors in 1920. In the course of a century, it has established itself as Sri Lanka’s best bank and its largest privately run lender, with 261 branches and 827 ATMs at the end of 2017. It is the first private lender to exceed SLRs1 trillion ($6.5 billion) in total assets.

It’s boom time in Colombo’s property market, eight years after the end of the civil war, as soaring towers transform the colonial-era city into a would-be south Asian Dubai. That’s the government’s plan, but who is going to pay for it, in an economy already deep in debt?

Private equity firms are bringing new money, international expertise and fresh ideas to Colombo, hoping to rejuvenate Sri Lanka’s investment scene.

One of the more fashionable things that a Sri Lankan can do is produce a foreign credit card to pick up the dinner tab for friends and family. And in Colombo’s smarter establishments, around one in two of those flourishes will feature an HSBC logo.

In a country looking to build a safe, sustainable recovery after decades of conflict and upheaval, it is no surprise that all the big financial institutions in Sri Lanka take their commitment to corporate social responsibility seriously. This award was therefore fiercely contested.

Small and medium-sized enterprises make up 80% of all Sri Lanka businesses, employ 35% of its workers and contribute about one third of the island’s GDP. Eight years after the end of the civil war, the government has identified the sector as critical to binding and normalizing the economy.