Country Awards dinner photos

Last Friday, FinanceAsia held an awards dinner in Singapore to celebrate our Annual Country Awards for Achievement. These awards are announced each July and recognise excellence in commercial and investment banking for both foreign and domestic financial institutions across 10 Asian countries.

This marks the seventh year of our Country Awards, but the first time we have held a formal dinner to mark the occasion and we were delighted to welcome over 200 bankers and their clients from around the region. On the night, we also inaugurated a new award - Best Bank in Asia.

This award was judged on the basis of both Standard & Poor's Bank Fundamental Strength Rating (BFSR), which was given a 25% weighting and 12 individual financial metrics, including ROE and NIM, which comprised the remaining 75% of the weighting. The best domestic commercial bank from each Asian country was shortlisted, although HSBC was excluded on the basis that it is now a global rather than a purely regional player

Nine banks were in the running, with the top bank in each category awarded nine points down to the lowest bank, which was awarded one point. The winner was DBS, which amassed a total of 89.7 points, followed by Shinhan Bank with 83.6.

Our guest of honour for the evening was David Eldon, who humourously recounted his rise from humble filing clerk to Chairman of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. Our charity for the evening was the Au Kim Hung Love & Care Association, which builds schools for impoverished children in China.

We would like to thank everyone who attended the evening and all our sponsors, including the Banyan Tree, which kindly donated the evening's top raffle prize - a luxury stay at its new resort in China's Shangri-La: Ringha, located in Yunnan Province, Greater Tibet.

Please click on individual photos for full sized images of some of the awards recipients. For complimentary copies of any photos from the evening, please contact: [email protected].