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The Commercial Bank of Ceylon is one of the leading commercial banks in Sri Lanka with over 100 branches.

History

• 1920: Eastern Bank, a British overseas bank, opened a branch in Ceylon.
• 1957: Chartered Bank (another British overseas bank; see below) acquired Eastern Bank but ran it separately.
• 1961: The Government of Ceylon forbade foreign banks to accept deposits from Ceylonese nationals.
• 1969: Eastern Bank incorporated its branch under the name, Commercial Bank of Ceylon (CBC), and took 40% of the equity. CBC got Mercantile Bank of India’s branches in Kandy, Galle and Jaffna as part of a deal that would remove the government’s limit on deposit taking in Mercantile’s remaining branches in Colombo and Pettah. The branches actually transferred in 1973. (HSBC had acquired Mercantile in 1959.)
• 1971: Eastern bank amalgamated with Chartered Bank.
• 1975: Chartered Bank merged with Standard Bank to form Standard Chartered Bank.
• 1997: Standard Chartered divested itself of its 40% stake in CBC. DFCC Bank (ex-Development Finance Corporation of Ceylon) acquired 29.5%.
• 2003: CBC acquired Credit Agricole Indosuez's two branches in Bangladesh at Dhaka and Chittagong to become the first Sri Lankan bank to establish operations outside the country. Banque Indosuez had opened its branches in 1980.

The late Hon. Justice Manicavasagar, Former Chancellor of The University of Jaffna. A very prominent man in society, he was also Chairmen of the commercial bank, and received the Sri lankan National Award by President Junius Richard Jayewardene.

Green, E., and S. Kinsey. 1999. The Paradise Bank (Aldershot: Ashgate).

• Commercial Bank of Ceylon