Named “The Strongest Bank in Bangladesh” by The Asian Banker in 2010, and the “Best Bank in Bangladesh – 2012” by FinanceAsia, City Bank has undergone an entire transformation, starting in 2007, and has adopted a whole new Vision, Mission and Values.
Today, rather than a mere bank, City Bank considers itself a “financial supermarket” that offers its clients “enjoyable experiences” instead of mere transactions. The three-year transformation project focused on remodeling the business along a customer value segmented line through centralizing the business process. This is in contrast to the traditional decentralized, or branch-based model. The new structure allows City Bank to better tailor its services for specific customer segments, such as corporate and investment banking, retail and cards, SME, and treasury and market risks.
Consequently, customer service and the quality of product
offerings are higher than ever, evidenced by the bank’s results in the last few years. The net profit margin for 2009–2011 has been 26%, 25.3% and 18.7%, respectively. Given that this has taken place during one of the worst financial crises the world has seen, these margins seem satisfactory enough. In addition, net asset value per share in 2011 rose by 18.2% from 2010. City Bank is listed on both the Dhaka and the Chittagong stock exchanges.
According to Rubel Aziz, a dynamic and young entrepreneur and the Chairman of City Bank, the institution’s success is due in large part to its “strong ability in correctly understanding the domestic credit needs and culture, and responding to it rapidly through a very tight due diligence process.”
The bank’s risk management policies have also played a major role in maintaining liquidity at satisfactory levels – in spite of a national major liquidity crunch in 2011 – and in putting capital adequacy ratio (CAR) at a desired level. From 11.15% in 2010, the CAR grew to 12.79% in 2011, safely above the Basel II requirement of 10%.
City Bank holds the exclusive rights to issue American Express cards in Bangladesh. Launched in 2009, City Bank Amex Credit Cards redefined the country’s entire credit card industry and converted the bank into the second largest card issuer and the largest point-of-sales acquirer of credit cards in the market.
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