Emerging market banks: Methodology and definitions
Emerging market banks: The 1999 Rankings
Emerging market banks continue to suffer the effects of the crisis. Even though many economies are now well on the road to recovery - especially in Asia - it will take much longer for the health of the banks to be restored. Many banks have not yet provisioned adequately for the heap of bad loans that landed up on their books and capital ratios remain distorted. Transparency remains an alien concept for many emerging market banks even after all the criticism they received during and after the crisis.
In this year's top 200 emerging market banks, compiled by Fitch IBCA, the top of the table remains dominated by Chinese, Brazilian and Taiwanese banks. While Taiwan and Taiwanese banks were much less badly hit by Asia's turmoils than other countries in the region, China's banks were mired in difficulties even before the troubles began.
China's commercial banks have been used as the policy-lending arm of the state. Many of these loans are not serviced and will not be repaid but because they were made to state entities they are not considered bad.