NTB wins FMO’s Asset and Liability management competition

Nations Trust Bank PLC bagged the top prize, beating other emerging markets banks in the final of the FMO Asset and Liability Management (ALM) that concluded at The Hague in the Netherlands this month.

Five finalists were invited to come to the Netherlands for the final round of the ALM competition. They had come out 'on top' during the first "virtual" phase of the competition. For a period of 12 weeks, 20 teams, all FMO banking clients, ran their own "virtual" bank in a simulated and changing online business environment. The teams decided on their own strategy and took decisions with regard to asset management, funding, marketing etc.

Every two weeks the teams delivered their investment decisions, which were put into the simulation program.

This resulted in changes in their share price and performance ratios. The banks were able to follow their own performance and took lessons learned into account for their next decisions.

At the end of phase one, five finalists were invited to come to The Netherlands to play the final round and determine the winner.

The finalists were Nations Trust PLC (Sri Lanka), ACLEDA Bank Plc (Cambodia), VAB Bank (Ukraine), BAC (Costa Rica), and BANCENTRO (Nicaragua).

During this final the teams learned about advanced ALM topics that were not covered in Phase one and the competition was closed with three final decisions. During a three day event in The Netherlands, which included its fair share of networking opportunities, sightseeing and celebratory engagements, the finalists competed to establish who was the best.

After completing the ALM simulation, it was announced that NTB was the winner of the competition.

Commenting on the event, Iftikar Ahamed, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Nations Trust Bank said, ‘The competition offered us a unique opportunity to sharpen our ALM skills and created opportunities for the exchange of experience, ideas and networking among banking personnel internationally”.