In the Pic - Mr. Sukarm Bali, Senior VP, HDFC Bank Ltd, flanked by Mr. Clive Horwood - Editor of Euromoney (right) and Mr. Lawrence White - Asia Editor of Euromoney.

Our Bank has been named Best Bank in India in the Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2011. The awards were presented at the Euromoney Asia Awards ceremony in Hong Kong on July 14, 2011. Mr. Sukarm Bali, Senior VP received the award on behalf of our Bank.

The award citation reads:

"India's best bank award tends to be between the country's largest private sector lenders, HDFC and ICICI, interspersed with the occasional exception (Standard Chartered won the title in 2010 after an outstanding year).

This year the pendulum swings back to the 'Big Two', and in the direction of HDFC Bank, a genuinely outstanding lender in a country whose banks are mostly focused on domestic affairs. HDFC is a worthy winner of this award. Net profit rose 33 per cent in the financial year to March 31 (ICICI Bank's earnings by contrast rose by 28 per cent).

At every turn, HDFC Bank's figures are impressive. Its full-year dividend per share rose 37.5 per cent; its balance sheet and deposit base expanded in size by a quarter; and - perhaps following a broad decree from the Reserve Bank of India to all banks to expand more into third- and fourth-tier cities - its branch network expanded by more than 250, in 217 new cities, to nearly 2,000.

HDFC crushes its rivals in every conceivable way, and the view is backed up by every analyst and banker contacted on this subject by Euromoney. Noted one of the best analysts on the street - 'HDFC from an investor's viewpoint is the best place to park your money, and where you have no worries about the asset or management quality."