The City Bank
Bangladesh has a lot of banks, 57 in total. Many are small and troubled, but Dhaka also hosts the headquarters of a handful of first-rate banks that invest in themselves, their customers and the country around them.
Three lenders stand head and shoulders above the rest: Brac Bank, Eastern Bank and The City Bank. And of that trio, the latter stands aloft, a worthy winner of the award for best bank in Bangladesh.
The City Bank, ably run by managing director and CEO Sohail Hussain, is on a multi-year run of good form. It posted a sharp rise in earnings and income in the last full financial year, with net interest income up 7.5% in the 12 months to the end of March 2016, investment income up 57% and pre-tax profit rising 25%.
Non-performing loans remain below the industry average, and the bank has continued to invest heavily in its digital banking offering, its onshore wealth management operations – which is also the best among domestic banks – and in its physical network, adding 38 domestic branches over the last financial year.
Hussain is proud of being the most-followed Bangladesh lender on Facebook, and in Dhaka recently, he outlined to Asiamoney his key ambitions for the years to come, which include a big new push into project finance and a concerted effort to further improve the bank’s wealth management and digital banking services.