Citi’s scale across the emerging markets is unrivalled, and its investment bankers have been successful in playing to that strength throughout the last year.

Faced with an estimated $100 billion budget deficit but committed to a vast expenditure programme, Saudi finance minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan explains how he plans to balance the books.

Africa’s most ambitious homegrown regional bank has a problem, and it is called Nigeria. If it doesn’t solve it, the Nigerian business will hamper Ecobank’s goal of banking 100 million people across the rest of the continent.

Euromoney asked its panellists to rescore Lebanon’s risks in the aftermath of the port tragedy on August 4, with investors left pondering what’s next for a country now desperately in need of aid and finance for reconstruction.

The government’s resignation this week could pave the way for reform – and unlock essential IMF funding – but is the will to change there?

Analysts can see through the economic and fiscal shock to observe a country with its underlying strengths intact.

As Iran’s currency crisis deepens, observers fear that far from improving the situation, state intervention will do further damage to a country that was in economic turmoil even before coronavirus.

Coronavirus could provide the ‘ultimate accelerator’ for privatizations and foreign involvement.

The coronavirus pandemic is intensifying the case for domestic bank M&A in Africa, but cross-border deals will be challenging to execute.

Unquantifiable risk as a result of Covid-19 made the complex deal unworkable.

“This pandemic will change a lot of things in terms of how people approach crises in the future,” Martin Mugambi, Citi’s chief executive for Kenya and east Africa, tells Euromoney.

It’s hard to find a more comprehensive and cutting-edge offering in wealth management across Africa than that of Standard Bank, which is why the bank wins the award for best bank for wealth management in Africa once again.

HSBC retains its title as the Middle East’s best bank for transaction services for the second year running by stepping up to the challenge of helping customers trade and transact at a time of closed borders and supply-chain disruption.

Equity Bank takes the region's best bank accolade in this year's Euromoney Awards for Excellence.

Emirates NBD has excelled in all elements of its response to the Covid-19 pandemic, from steps taken to protect the health of its employees to loan deferrals for its customers; but what really stands out is the bank’s commitment to its community.

“People think the role of a bank is giving money, but actually what a bank does is build systems,” says Carl Manlan, chief operating officer of the Ecobank Foundation.

HSBC has been central to maintaining imports of vital goods into the region, even while national borders slammed shut.

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented change to the way that business is carried out in Africa. For those banks central to supply-chain management and trade finance, the need to maintain the flow of food, essential goods and personal protection equipment despite border closures is critical.

Deutsche Bank’s commitment to Africa’s economic development began long before the Covid-19 pandemic struck, but the bank’s expertise in infrastructure and structured finance will be essential in supporting the continent’s recovery and in helping to address the long-term concerns holding back development.

Citi has the largest presence of any global bank in Africa – active in over 40 countries, with offices in 16 of those. The bank excels at capacity building and innovation, working with a vast array of partnerships with government, government agencies, fintechs, local financial institutions, consumer goods companies, social enterprises and nonprofits.

The Middle East is a hard market in which to be truly sustainable, given the vast amount of money in the region that is tied to oil now and will be for some time.

Kenya’s Equity Bank stands out for its digital offering, and is poised to take advantage of the coronavirus-fuelled pivot towards cashless banking.

Standard Chartered’s contribution to the development of African markets this year was shown in several transformational infrastructure deals, including Tanzania’s light railway and a huge offshore oil drilling rig in Angola. This contribution makes it Euromoney’s best bank for financing in Africa.

The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the move towards cashless economies as governments advise against the use of cash because of its role as a vector for the virus. That has left many financial institutions scrambling to upgrade their systems.

A great deal of resources have been dedicated to small and medium enterprises in Saudi Arabia as the kingdom looks to increase SME’s contribution to GDP from 20% to 35% under its Vision 2030 programme.

Standard Bank’s investment in switching its trade processes from manual to digital has paid off this year, with faster processes stemming from better technology. It is the best bank for transaction services in Africa as a result. Its head of transactional products and services is Hasan Khan.

With Africa and the world expected to enter a protracted period of low growth, more companies will need to restructure and M&A will become a more dominant trend in the region. Over the last 12 months, Citi has demonstrated its expertise in these fields in Africa and it is Euromoney’s best bank for advisory in Africa this year.

Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) are the backbone of the Nigerian economy. A survey carried out in 2018 by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics estimated there are over 41 million firms with 199 employees or fewer in Nigeria, accounting for almost 50% of GDP. MSMEs provide almost 60 million jobs, equal to 86% of the national workforce.

First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) is the number one bank for loans in the Mena region, with a 15.5% market share, arranging some 160 transactions including $5 billion of syndicated loans from April 2019 to March 2020. But it has also won numerous debt capital markets mandates across the region.

Ahli United Bank, Bahrain’s largest bank by assets, reported a 5% increase in profits to $730.5 million and saw its cross-border business grow to 20% of its loan portfolio in 2019. Its takeover by Kuwait Finance House has been postponed until December due to the coronavirus outbreak, ruling it out of this year’s best bank award.