Ahmed Abdelaal is the first non-Ghurair family member to lead Mashreq Bank. His first two Covid-marred years in charge as chief executive were a baptism of fire, but he has hired well and decisively, putting in place a cosmopolitan management team that is transforming the Dubai-based lender.

Fonsis is an interesting sovereign wealth fund, operating a fund-of-funds model to help the country’s SME development while generating an industry around the management of private capital.

Increased intracontinental trade in Africa is a laudable objective, but may serve to highlight disparities in exchange-rate regimes that could further widen the gap between winners and losers.

Sovereign wealth involvement in football clubs has a chequered history. Saudi’s intentions with Newcastle are clearly about more than investment, but can these deals ever work?

South African banks’ sustainable finance challenges reflect the nation’s difficult but vital transition away from coal.

Many parts of Africa present formidable obstacles to financial inclusion. Euromoney speaks to some of the pioneers that are using technology to bring far-flung populations into the financial system.

Can multilateral development banks fight climate change while still promoting economic development in emerging markets? The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is the first to set out concrete plans on how to do this.

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority’s latest annual report has some unusually precise detail in it. It tells us about positions, internal structures, use of external managers and views around infrastructure and private equity at one of the world’s most powerful institutional investors.

Ajmal Ahmady, governor of Da Afghanistan Bank, Afghanistan’s central bank, gives Euromoney the inside story on his escape from the stricken country.

First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) again takes the award for the Middle East’s best bank for financing. Under its head of global corporate finance, Andy Cairns, the Abu Dhabi-based lender led the way in MENA, completing $4.75 billion worth of loans – more than any of its rivals, local or global – for a 19% share of the market. It was the key regional player in ECM and debt capital markets in the awards period, demonstrating again why it is so strong in this category.

Under chief executive Bolaji Balogun, Chapel Hill Denham has become Nigeria’s preeminent independent investment bank, rivalling Standard Bank’s Stanbic IBTC for dominance. Its leadership is most evident on the advisory side, where it’s the go-to house in Africa’s biggest economy.

Standard Bank is once again a worthy winner of the award for Africa’s best bank for wealth management. It offers wealth management services in southern, eastern and parts of western Africa – 15 countries in all, including South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.

Citi wins this award in part because it was so successful in securing a role for itself in the region’s big Spac deals. The US bank completed 11 M&A transactions in the year to the end of March 2021, worth a total of $53.3 billion, according to Dealogic data, for a 37% market share.

It was yet another impressive year for HSBC in sustainable finance. At a global level the bank is committed to net-zero on carbon emissions. At a regional level it has a team of 39 staff, led by its head of sustainability, Europe and the Middle East, Sabrin Rahman. They engage with clients on ESG, sustainable finance and transition strategies.

A strong hold on the foreign currency and fixed income markets in countries such as Nigeria and Kenya proved a vital asset for Standard Bank over the last 12 months, as South Africa suffered particularly damaging Covid-19 lockdowns. Largely because of this regional investment banking structure, coupled with provisioning for credit losses in South Africa, the group made almost twice as much money in the rest of Africa as it did in South Africa in 2020 – highlighting how much Standard Bank is now a pan-African play for investors.

No other wealth manager comes close to competing with UBS for this award. Again, the Swiss banking giant demonstrated its commitment to the region. During the awards period, it relocated its Dubai office to the heart of the Emirate’s financial district and opened a new wealth management office in Doha. UBS aims to hire about 20 people in Qatar by the end of 2020, but it has already made its biggest personnel move, bringing Tarek Eido from HSBC to oversee its onshore wealth business. Eido will report to head of wealth management, Middle East and Africa, Ali Janoudi.

Not the biggest but the most profitable. That’s the strategy of Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank) and it’s one that – with a return on average equity of 28.5% in 2020 – it is clearly achieving among its banking competitors in its home country Nigeria and also across Africa.

Access Bank sets the digital agenda for banking in Africa. It has been a long journey to this award, a process accelerated by the 2019-approved merger with Diamond Bank, but it has been worth it. The Lagos-headquartered bank compares itself, not to its regional peers, but to the best internationally, such as the UK’s Monzo. At the end of March 2021, it had 9.8 million digital customers and reckons it is adding 500,000 new users each month.

It was the kind of year when solidity and stability mattered above all else, and Emirates NBD had both of those in spades. Under group chief executive Shayne Nelson, the Dubai-based lender is in pole position to benefit from a post-pandemic recovery, as a region of resource-rich nations, governed by ambitious leaders, seeks to diversify away from oil and gas.

East African banks have led the way in SME financing in Africa and none more so than Equity Bank. Nigerian banks often struggle to get to a double-digit percentage allocation of their loan books to SMEs. That’s partly due to a less diversified, oil-dependent economy. But even by east African standards, Equity Bank is impressive. Most of its loan book (54%) is with SME clients.

HSBC retains the award for best bank for transaction services for the third straight year thanks to its ability to adapt to the pandemic and the rapidly changing needs of regulators and its customers. In the Middle East that means being there when it matters. The bank processed $552 billion in payments and $54 billion in trade for 15,000-plus clients last year.

Citi stands head and shoulders above the competition in Middle East investment banking. The US bank ranked number one in M&A, completing $53.3 billion worth of deals across the awards period, according to Dealogic. It also topped the equity capital market tables, completing 18 deals worth a combined $2.33 billion. It led the way in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Israel, completing several deals that matter deeply to a region keen to wean itself off oil and gas, and to create truly diversified economies.

No regional lender comes close to competing with Mashreq Bank for the best digital bank award. Under group chief executive Ahmed Abdelaal and head of corporate and investment banking Joel Van Dusen, the Dubai-based lender has become not just a powerhouse in digital but a leader too. It continues to invest heavily in blockchain. Its Trade Tracker platform allows corporates to track all transactions in real time and to view them all in a single window. TradeFursaa sucks in data from the bank’s business lines, then uses AI and big data to identify opportunities for traders and exporters.

During Covid-19, providing support to more vulnerable sections of society has been more important than ever. Whether it’s distributing sanitary equipment or providing retailer vouchers through digital means, Kenya Commercial Bank’s KCB Foundation has stepped up to that challenge. This help, moreover, has come on the back of older initiatives that the foundation has developed over time.

At a time when sustainability issues are rising in importance for all South African banks, Nedbank has led the way in terms of its commitment to environment, social and governance goals. This green agenda is vital in a country that is prone to drought, is Africa’s biggest polluter, heavily reliant on coal for its electricity and in desperate need of a rapid increase in its power generation capacity.

The region's best banks, country by country

Riyad Bank’s transformation into the region’s best bank for small and medium-sized enterprises coincides with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 plans to diversify away from oil and towards tourism, manufacturing, clean energy and logistics. SMEs are one of the key planks not only of Riyad Bank chief executive Tareq Al Sadhan’s business strategy but also for Vision 2030. The kingdom has a longstanding aim of boosting the share of loans allocated to smaller firms to 20% by the end of the decade, against 2% in 2015.

The region's best banks, country by country

Absa’s greater determination to put its money where its mouth is in Africa, after its separation from Barclays, is well known. Even in South Africa, where many of its peers have struggled during the Covid crisis, it continued to grow its corporate loan book under corporate and investment banking chief executive Charles Russon in 2020. But Absa’s preeminence as an African financing house goes well beyond its ability to deploy its balance sheet – and way beyond South Africa.

Regional banks in Africa are developing internationally orientated and increasingly sophisticated transaction services platforms; often, as at Equity Bank, to service corporate and small and medium-sized enterprise clients trading across borders. Ecobank, meanwhile, is bolstering its business with partnerships including part-owners Qatar National Bank and Nedbank, as well as with regional telecoms companies and payments firms like Flutterwave.