AN INDEPENDENT world study conducted by World Finance, a renowned global financial magazine, has recognised Baiduri Bank Group as the “Best Banking Group in Brunei” at their 2009 World Finance Awards, according to the bank’s press release.

With a strong combination of local commitment and global expertise and a track record of financial innovations and pioneering activities, the group recorded solid performance and growth in business volume and activities that have propelled it to receive the global award. This is the first time in the history of the annual World Finance Awards that a Brunei bank has been selected.
Mr Pierre Imhof, General Manager of Baiduri Bank, received the award in the form of a crystal obelisk from Mr Hywell Jones, formerly of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), at the historic London Stock Exchange in London recently.

Following the award presentation, Mr Imhof was interviewed on growth strategies employed by Baiduri Bank in Brunei during which he spoke of the group’s major progresses and achievements over the past 15 years and its core values which aim to meet the needs of the local market. Excerpts of the interview can be viewed on World Finance website, www.worldfinance.com and Baiduri Bank’s website www.baiduri.com.

The World Finance award selection panel has used a wide range of criteria to reach its decision over its 2009 awards, lending a critical eye of a collective 175 years of business journalism to the exhaustive information gathered by the award body’s research team. Some of the more important factors included: customer solutions and relationship optimisation, innovation and flexibility, keeping ahead of the competition, market leadership and geographical spread, proof of development and positive media coverage.

Included in the award list this year are other Asian banking groups such as China Construction Bank, Hong Kong; Bank Mandiri, Indonesia; State Bank of India, India; Seng Heng Bank, Macau; Public Bank Berhad, Malaysia; Siam Commercial Bank, Thailand; Banco de Oro, Philippines; DBS Bank, Singapore and Habubank, Vietnam.

World Finance magazine is published by World News media, with its headquarters in London. The magazine provides readers with regular updated news collected from trusted media organisations such as Reuters and Financial News and is distributed to 120,000 key decision-makers around the world representing multi-national institutions, heads of banks and government treasury departments.

This latest award adds to the long list of prestigious awards received by the bank over the past few years. These include the Bank of the Year Brunei award from The Banker magazine, UK, in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008. The bank also won in the Marketing, PR or Brand Management Project category of the Asian Banking Awards consecutively in 2004 and 2005. In February 2008, Baiduri Bank received a Special Citation for FAST, the revolutionary mobile suite of services at the Financial Insights Innovation Awards.

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