The award for best bank in Asia this year goes to Pakistan’s largest lender by market cap, Muslim Commercial Bank. Listed in Karachi and with strong financial links to the Gulf region and southeast Asia, MCB has in recent years transformed itself into one of Asia’s strongest lenders. It’s not the biggest, but it is large, and it is growing fast, particularly in such areas as asset management, retail banking and Islamic finance. Under the watchful eye of its respected founder and chairman, Mian Mohammad Mansha, MCB has become a genuinely powerful lender, the most influential in Pakistan, with revenues rising despite the global credit crunch and a branch network expected to top 1,000 by the end of this year, from 670 a year previously.
As of June 17, MCB was Pakistan’s largest bank by market value, at PRs174 billion ($2.6 billion), with total assets of about $6 billion.