Eastern Bank (EBL) has been awarded ''Bank of the Year 2023" of Bangladesh by the renowned London-based international financial analysis and intelligence publication, The Banker.
EBL becomes the first local bank to receive the coveted award for the third time.
This time it was awarded for proving its mettle in the face of serious economic headwinds and market volatility during the past year, developing innovative products and services, modernising their infrastructure, and delivering bottom line results. The lender's focus on environmental and social aspects, and governance were also considered.
Ali Reza Iftekhar, managing director and CEO of Eastern Bank, says: "We are honored to receive the prestigious award which is a testament to our continuous efforts for achieving excellence.
"Despite the challenges of rising default loans, shortfall of provision and capital, and the Covid-19-induced slowdown in Bangladesh's financial services industry, we remained focused in our essential role in society to help our customers save, invest, spend, borrow and protect their money.
“We are committed to be a partner on Bangladesh's journey to a trillion-dollar economy by 2041."
During the year. EBL doubled down on its digital offering with its Skybanking app, according to a press release.
This has been expanded with the introduction of the bank's Skypay e-commerce platform which, to date, has processed eight million transactions and holds an 81 per cent market share in online payments.
The bank is one of the first institutions to implement the Bangladesh central bank's Interoperable Digital Transaction Platform, known as Binimoy which aims to create a cashless society in Bangladesh.
The bank also embarked on an infrastructure modernisation programme, launching Project Rupantor to upgrade its Oracle Flexcube UBS core banking system to version 14.3, which is a real-time online solution supporting multi-currency, multilingual, multi-entity, and multi-instance operations.
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