Eastern Bank PLC has been honoured as "Bank of the Year 2023 in Bangladesh" by London-based international financial analysis and intelligence publication The Banker for developing innovative products and services, modernising their infrastructure and delivering bottom line results.

The bank becomes the first local bank to receive the coveted award for a third time. They previously received the award in 2020 and 2021.

"This award will inspire us to uphold the values that drive us day in, day out," said Ali Reza Iftekhar, managing director and CEO.

"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 on our essential role in society to help our customers save, invest, spend, borrow and protect their money with trust and confidence with a passion for service excellence".

During the year, the bank doubled down on its digital offerings with its Skybanking app.

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.

It 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.

This year the bank also received the Asiamoney Best Domestic Bank 2023 Awards gold trophy at the ICMAB Best Corporate Award 2022 and ICSB Gold Award for Corporate Governance.