Completed Middle East M&A volumes more than doubled to $110 billion in this awards period, according to Dealogic – although the number of deals fell by about a quarter. Teva’s acquisition of Allergan made up around a third of the volume on its own. The purchase of a 19.5% stake in Rosneft by Glencore and Qatar Investment Authority made up another 10th.

Competition in digital banking is not as fierce as in the Middle East as elsewhere. Rarely do banks’ achievements match their rhetoric in this area.

Events such as the rise and fall in the oil price and the steep devaluation of the Egyptian pound, made 2016 another eventful year for markets businesses in the Middle East.

The region’s wealthy are another group increasingly targeted by both local and international banks. The regional wealth management award goes to a firm with global breadth and expertise in this area, Credit Suisse, which also keeps the top spot in the Middle East in Euromoney’s 2017 private banking survey.

Transaction services clients are increasingly well served in the Middle East, particularly in the UAE’s relatively large financial services industry. Local banks have improved their offering, while the biggest international banks also see it as a priority.

The region’s investment banking market, as ever, remains more tilted to the Gulf, which has recently been less active in blockbuster sovereign wealth-fund M&A mandates and more vigorous in public-sector financing as the lower oil price has bitten.

In corporate social responsibility, it is also rare to find financial institutions who manage to take their contributions beyond the occasional charitable donations, but rather put their financial acumen to good use in the community.

It was a year of some relief for Middle East banking, as the benefits of reform began to be felt and the oil price recovered. Although they remain partly at the mercy of Opec and the US shale energy industry, there was good news for local and international banks, as the government spending crunch eased up and the region turned to international markets to finance its development projects and budget deficits.

Commercial International Bank wins region’s best bank award; winners reflect year of reform and easing bank liquidity; record year for Gulf debt capital markets sees HSBC retaining investment-banking title, while local and international banks do battle for regional and domestic awards.

Last year’s award for best bank transformation honoured Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait, a bank that showed great ambition by acquiring a financial institution larger than itself – the Egyptian division of Greek bank Piraeus. By so doing it became an international player in Middle Eastern banking.

Itaú buys XP to protect its market share; staggered deal offers XP a certain future away from IPO risks.

Private banks ahead of the curve in terms of provisioning; Banco do Brasil returns to double-digit ROE.

New marketplace for impact investments; industry in need of institutional clout.

All sorts of things can go wrong when you start pledging cows as collateral.

Ukraine’s Gontareva should be lauded for her efforts to clean up Ukraine’s rotten banking system.

Mulyani’s programme finds success much closer to home than expected.

Telecoms tycoon backs new SME online lender; chairman Péretié sees sector-beating ROE.

Bond Connect programme confirmed; long-term potential means little today.

At first quantitative easing offered palliative care to the global economy – now the patient is finally reviving.

Market moves to T+2 settlement; boosts eligibility for MSCI inclusion.

First dual listings promised for early 2018; investors set to seek reassurance on minority rights.

It turns out that part of the reason Indonesia reacted so badly to the JPMorgan equities call was because it was downgraded more than Brazil.

As international banks continue to pull out of Africa, Afreximbank president, Benedict Oramah explains why African institutions need to be the main source of support for the continent in times of crisis.

The country’s new minister of finance has ambitions to build factories, cut taxes and combat corruption. His background as an entrepreneur and banker may mean his plans can get off the ground.

The country’s last administration borrowed heavily from banks to sustain inefficient state-owned energy companies at the expense of the private sector – can the newly elected government repay the debt and get banks lending again?

Aval may be the leading banking group in Colombia and central America because of its sprawling structure, but could there be efficiencies available from rationalizing its operating model?

Beehive and Eureeca are using online crowdfunding to raise debt and equity for small businesses in the Middle East. Becoming regulated will allow them to grow rapidly. In time, they could eat the banks’ lunch, or the banks just might swallow them.

The liquidity issues that have plagued the Kingdom’s banks for months appear to have abated. But a persistently low oil price and the impending generational reform programme mean that Saudi Arabia’s financial sector still faces some big challenges.

Moldova is troubled even by the standards of eastern Europe, but at the central bank Sergiu Cioclea, a former BNP Paribas corporate financier, is trying to bring order to his home country’s chaotic banking sector.

Whip-smart M&A boutiques and upstart full-service investment banks are making waves in India, profiting from the retreat of global investment banks. But how much further can they go?