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Standard Chartered is much more than the last international bank still standing when it comes to this award. True, foreign banks such as HSBC, Barclays, RBS, ABN Amro and Citi have either sold or scaled back their operations in Pakistan in recent years.

Part microfinancier, part bank, First Women Bank Ltd’s very raison d’etre is corporate social responsibility, namely to help half the Pakistani population – its women – have access to financial services.

Security Bank is a well-oiled universal bank with a solid nationwide presence – 264 branches and 560 ATMs at the end of 2016 – and a thriving thrift bank, Security Bank Savings. The lender, which in 2016 sold a 20% stake to Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi for $774 million, reported a 28% rise in net interest income in 2016, with total deposits up 20%. Its non-performing loan ratio fell to just 0.17% at the end of last year, an all-time low.

The Philippines does not lack for lenders that can see both the country’s potential and its widespread poverty. Giving something back has long been on the agenda of financial institutions, large and small. But few lenders can compete with BDO Unibank, whose corporate and social responsibility arm, BDO Foundation, has become a surprising first line of help for families that have lost everything, usually due to natural or man-made disasters such as hurricanes and monsoons.

Most banks take their digital divisions seriously these days, touting their prowess and all-purpose online service. But it’s rare to find a lender that saw the potential in the digital world early – and got it right. Most countries boast at least one standout lender in this category; when it comes to the Philippines, that lender is Union Bank.

Much of the private banking that happens in relation to the Philippines happens far from its shores. Of course, a host of local lenders tout their private banking credentials and many do indeed offer excellent services targeted at wealthier customers. The list starts with the likes of BDO Unibank and Bank of the Philippine Islands, but also includes myriad mid-sized lenders offering quality services to higher net-worth and mass-affluent customers. Both BDO Private Bank and BPI Private Banking have won awards in this category down the years – and rightly so.

Two lenders stand out above the fray in Thailand: Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) and Kasikornbank. Both are focused, driven, ambitious, and better than their peers at squeezing a little bit extra out of a tough banking market and an underperforming economy.

As the Belt and Road Initiative has gathered pace, it has attracted increasing interest from local, regional and global banks in central and eastern Europe.

Chinese banks have been present in central and eastern Europe for 15 years, but – with the exception of ICBC’s purchase of Turkey’s Tekstilbank in 2014 – outright acquisitions of local lenders have been rare. This makes Citic Bank’s takeover of Kazakhstan’s Altyn Bank, which was completed in May, all the more important.

With Chinese banks dominating BRI-related financing in central and eastern Europe, the opportunities for involvement by western European and global players have so far been few and far between. Nevertheless, Deutsche Bank, for whom Daniel Qian is head of structured export finance, China, managed to demonstrate again over the last 12 months that there are openings for lenders with regional and sectoral expertise.

In the five years since the inauguration of the BRI project, Sberbank has emerged as one of the main drivers of a new era of collaboration between Russia and China.

It is a familiar adage: China is known for its insatiable hunger for fossil fuels, so governments in the Middle East and Africa, awash with oil and gas, keep China fuelled, in return, China provides cheap financing for infrastructure development.