Independent Assurance Report to the Stakeholders of Bank of Ceylon on the Sustainability Report – 2016

Introduction and Scope of the Engagement

The management of Bank of Ceylon (“Bank”) engaged us to provide an independent assurance on the following elements of the Sustainability Report 2016 (“the Report”).

• Reasonable assurance on the information on financial performance as specified on pages 24 and 25 ofthe Report.
• Limited assurance on key performance indicators and other information presented in the Report, prepared in accordance with the requirements of Global Reporting Initiative G4 in accordance with – core guideline.

Responsibility of the Management on the Report

The Management of the Bank is responsible for the preparation and presentation of the Report in accordance with the Bank’s sustainability practices and policies which are derived from Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI-G4) Sustainability Reporting Guidelines. These responsibilities include among other things, identification of stakeholders and material issues, determining the sustainable performance criteria for reporting and establishing appropriate processes and internal control systems to measure and report the sustainability performance criteria.

Our Responsibility

Our responsibility is to perform a reasonable and limited assurance engagement and express conclusions based on the work performed in accordance with Sri Lanka Standard on Assurance Engagements (SLSAE 3000): ‘Assurance Engagements other than Audits or Reviews of Historical Financial Information’, issued by The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka).

Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance. However, reasonable assurance is not an absolute level of assurance because there are inherent limitations of assurance engagement. A limited assurance engagement is substantially less in scope than a reasonable assurance engagement and consequently does not enable to obtain assurance that we would become aware of all significant matters that might be identified in a reasonable assurance engagement.

This Report is made solely to the Bank in accordance with our engagement letter dated 2 March 2017. We disclaim any assumption of responsibility for any reliance on this Report to any person other than the Bank or for any purpose other than that for which it was prepared. In conducting our engagement, we have complied with the independence requirements of the Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants issued by the CA Sri Lanka.

Assurance Procedures Carried Out

Financial Information

We reconciled the information on financial performance as reported on pages 24 and 25 of the Report with the audited Financial Statements of the Bank for the years ended 31 December 2015 and 2016.

Key Performance Indicators

We reviewed the reliability of the data/information on Key Performance Indicators for the year ended 31 December 2016 based on reviews of:

• the systems used to generate, aggregate and report these information;
• the information reported by the relevant business units to corporate level;
• the information validation processes at corporate and business level;
• the information trends in discussions with management; and
• the calculation performed by the Bank on a sample basis through recalculation.

Other Information

We planned and performed following assurance procedures on other information presented in the Report:

• Inquiring relevant Bank’s personnel to understand the process for collection, analysis, aggregation and presentation of information in the Report.
• Reviewing the system used to generate, aggregate and report the information in the Report
• Interviewing the senior management and relevant staff at corporate level and selected business unit level and obtained the evidence concerning sustainability strategy and policies for material issues and implementation of those across operation of the Bank.
• Reviewing and validating the Information contained in the Report.
• Reading the information presented in the Report to determine whether that information is in line with our overall knowledge of, and experience with, sustainability performance of the Bank.
• Comparison of the content of the report against the criteria for a Global Reporting Initiatives G4 in accordance with – core guidelines.

Conclusion

Based on the procedures performed, as described above, we conclude that:

• The information on financial performance as specified on pages 24 and 25 of the Report is properly derived from the audited Financial Statements of the Bank for the years ended 31 December 2015 and 2016.
• Nothing has come to our attention that causes us to believe that key performance indicators and other information presented in the Report are not presented, in all material respects, in accordance with the Bank’s sustainability practices and policies which are derived from GRI (G4) Sustainability Reporting Guidelines.

Chartered Accountants
Colombo

30 March 2017
TS/cc