Ceylon

The Bank of Ceylon was founded in 1939. Two years later in 1941 its first domestic branch was opened in Kandy, the former capital of Sri Lanka. In 1949 the Bank opened its first overseas branch in London. The Bank was nationalised in 1961 to facilitate the national development efforts and to this day remains 100 owned by the State of Sri Lanka. It is the largest Sri Lankan bank with an island wide network of 305 branches and two overseas branches Male in the Maldives and Chennai in India . The Bank of Ceylon operates a number of subsidiaries within Sri Lanka and fully owns the Bank of Ceylon UK Ltd. The 2009 accounts for the Bank show assets of 538bn Rupees and revenues of 63bn.