Businesses and banks in Belarus have faced a particularly tough challenge during the Covid-19 crisis due to the refusal of the government not only to impose any national restrictions but also to acknowledge the risks of the pandemic and implement any measures to mitigate its economic impact.

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.

In a transformative year for capital markets in the Middle East, HSBC stands out as the region’s best investment bank, reclaiming the title it last won in 2017.

First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) developed its sustainability framework in 2017 under four pillars: sustainable banking, being a responsible employer, having a positive social impact and excellence in governance, integrity and risk management.

Center-Invest Bank became the first Russian bank to issue a green bond with its R250 million ($3.56 million) offering in November last year. It was a natural step for a bank that has been committed to the environment and responsible banking from its inception.

The coordination of the financial response to the coronavirus crisis has sometimes seemed easier in France than elsewhere in Europe.

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.

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.

Supported by helpful regulators, many Asian lenders adapted well to the pandemic. Hong Leong Bank (HLB) was no exception. The Kuala Lumpur-based lender donated to local NGOs and delivered food parcels to the needy during Ramadan.

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.

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.

To the detractors of big Wall Street banks, Goldman Sachs might not seem an obvious candidate for recognition of its response to a humanitarian crisis. But when the Covid-19 crisis struck, the bank rapidly deployed a raft of measures spanning frontline support for hospitals to online versions of its community volunteering programmes.

Under the stewardship of chief executive Jean-Christophe Durand, formerly head of BNP Paribas’s Middle East and Africa operations, National Bank of Bahrain (NBB) embarked on a radical transformation programme in 2017 that delivered impressive results during the awards period.

Many of the small countries that make up the central American and Caribbean region are dependent on tourism for income. They will likely be hard hit this year.

Over the past decade Poland’s banks have consistently been at the head of the pack in Europe in terms of digitalization.

Credit Suisse wins the award for Latin America’s best bank for wealth management.

The London-headquartered lender has its roots and its future in Asia, and from the outset it was keen to provide staunch support to its customers across the region. It has been everywhere throughout the Covid-19 crisis, playing, in the words of chief executive Noel Quinn, a “massive role” in supporting communities and helping restore economic growth.

It isn’t easy being a very big bank with a very big presence in very big markets. Citi is a big financial institution present in virtually every large Asian economy. You don’t get to be this size and to last this long without an innate ability to react smartly and nimbly to systemic threats.

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

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.

There is fierce competition in sustainable finance in Western Europe, but this year one bank stands out for its commitment across all the sectors and countries in which it operates and for its work on ensuring the needs of both environment and society are addressed.

One of the first things Nigeria’s Guaranty Trust Bank did with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic was to get in touch with local authorities to see how the bank could help. Recognizing that the fragile public healthcare system would struggle to cope with the predicted number of patients, it offered to set up a care facility for people with Covid-19.

This year the region’s best investment bank is JPMorgan. In a highly competitive year, the US bank claims the award because of the unrivalled breadth of its mandates across investment banking products, as well as its dominance in many of the region’s countries.

“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.

The best bank for financing in the region is Goldman Sachs.

Scotiabank Chile wins the award for the region’s best bank transformation.

Another brisk year of M&A deal flow in CEE produced a clear winner on the advisory side. The best bank for advisory, Citi, dominated Dealogic’s league tables for the 12 months to the end of March, acting on 17 deals worth $17.7 billion, versus just $9.5 billion for its nearest rival.

While it was hard before, the Covid-19 pandemic will make it almost impossible for most European banks to earn their cost of equity any time soon.

In a region where the greatest amount of wealth is in the hands of entrepreneurs, it is a ‘bank for entrepreneurs’ that many of those wealthy individuals need and that is Credit Suisse. It wins the award this year for Asia’s best bank for wealth management.

Morgan Stanley rarely seems to put a foot wrong in Asia. As ever, it seemed to be everywhere last year, a key player on the deals that mattered most.