Bank of Baroda wins best bank award

Leading public sector lender Bank of Baroda has been awarded the best bank of 2010, instituted by a business magazine.

Receiving the award, instituted by the Business India magazine from Union Roads and Highways Minister Kamal Nath, BoB Chairman and Managing Director M D Mallya said he would endeavour to create a new-age bank that meets the aspirations of our customers, who are the guiding force of the bank.

Addressing the gathering, Nath said, "In a scenario, where over half of our citizens are unbanked, the 102-year-old BoB has set for itself a commendable target of reaching out to 20,000 villagers in three years."

Commenting on the stupendous performance of the public sector banks in the country during 2008-09 global financial crisis, he said our state-run banks proved every critic wrong during and after the crisis by paying bonuses to the government against their Western counterparts which were going belly up and living by their governments.

Addressing the function, State Bank Chairman Om Prakash Bhatt said, "Three years before the 2008-09 financial crisis, all the winners of Business India's best bank awards were private sector banks. Post-crisis, the winners have all been public sector banks. It has taken a global crisis to show that our public sector banks are a throbbing, functioning machine." State Bank of India won the award last year.