Banreservas’ president Samuel Pereyra would argue that as a state-owned bank, all of its activities are led by a sense of corporate responsibility. Its loan portfolios are directed towards providing credit to industries targeted as crucial for the Dominican economy’s growth and its recent international expansion has been developed to facilitate financing flows between the country and its large international diaspora.

Nedbank wins the best digital bank in Africa award for the second year in a row, courtesy of its push to reform and re-engineer its IT system, with the aim of cutting costs, attracting new business and favouring an approach that focuses on evolution rather than revolution.

The economies of central America have been growing rapidly since the end of the pandemic. Some of this is the natural rebound of economic activity among countries that have outsized tourist sectors; and increased spending in this sector is one of the leading themes of the past couple of years.

Getting M&A right in Africa is not easy – big-ticket transactions are rare, and deal flow tends to come in fits and starts – but Standard Bank has got it down to a fine art.

Morocco-based Bank of Africa boasts a long and storied history as a leading lender to regional small and medium-sized enterprises. Last year, it secured a €50 million credit line from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to increase financing for SMEs across the continent.

There are many reasons why Citi wins this year’s award for Asia’s best digital bank. Above all, the bank has no peer when it comes to investing year after year in cutting-edge digital solutions that benefit all of its clients.

Led by its head of wealth and investment Jacques Els, Standard Bank Wealth & Investment is a private-banking powerhouse in Africa.

There is so much to like about Sampath Bank’s approach to corporate responsibility. The Sri Lankan bank spent Rs91.3 million ($300,000) on all corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in 2023. That is small compared to the sums lavished on the space by bigger lenders. Yet the bank, which allocates 1% of net profit to projects that further environmental and social sustainability, manages to squeeze so much out of what it has to give.

For a global lender, Citi’s investment-banking presence in Africa is hard to compete with. The US firm has an onshore presence in 16 countries and covers 38 markets, with a dedicated team in Johannesburg supported by corporate bankers across the region.

Citi stands head and shoulders above its rivals in this category. The products it generates are designed to help day-to-day business for all its clients, be they global corporates working in and across Africa, or African firms scaling up their regional and international presence.

HSBC was the standout candidate in this award this year, dominating transaction banking in Asia.

Equity Bank Kenya claims its mission is to empower clients and stakeholders, both socially and economically.

It is hardly surprising that an Italian bank should excel at lending to small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the backbone of the industrial strategy of the country. SMEs are at the heart of UniCredit’s UniCredit per l’Italia strategy, which has seen a further €10 billion of support extended to individuals and corporates this year – including a special assistance package for Emilia Romagna in May in response to widespread flooding.

Yet again, DBS stands head and shoulders above the field in Asian wealth management.

BBVA achieved impressive momentum in Latin America during 2023, winning individual best bank awards in Colombia and Mexico, and coming close in Peru. Its bank in Argentina also posted respectable growth and is poised to take advantage of a potentially more benign economic outlook. The Spanish firm also capitalized on its market leading position in Mexico to win the award for the country’s best investment bank and is also Latin America’s best bank for transaction services – a landmark win in an sector that has traditionally been dominated by US banks.

BNP Paribas has enviable sustainable finance credentials globally, but Latin America has become a particular area of strength for the French bank. In 2023, it led on some truly landmark transactions for clients throughout the region and can claim to be leading the evolution of sustainable finance in Latin America.

As the equity capital markets remained sluggish across Europe last year, financing activity was all about debt. So, it is perhaps no surprise that western Europe’s best bank for financing this year is the one that dominated the debt capital markets league tables working on 509 deals worth $128 billion equivalent for a 7% market share: BNP Paribas. Even in ECM, the French firm ranked number five behind sector leaders BofA Securities and Goldman Sachs.

‘Being there’ is one of Citi’s many skills. It is always there for clients: underwriting stock offerings, printing bonds and taking the lead on bridge loans to support complex acquisitions.

Some capital markets franchises make their name for sheer volume, topping the deal rankings by simply being everywhere. Others take a different tack, picking spots where they know they excel and then doing so. For yet again being on some of the most challenging and intellectually demanding deals in the review period, Morgan Stanley is North America’s best bank for financing.

HSBC is a powerhouse in sustainable finance in Asia: a multiple winner of this award and for good reason.

Scotiabank has long championed a variety of environmental, social and governance (ESG) priorities in its business and considers walking the talk to be crucial in its home region. For its continued commitment to doing things right, Scotiabank is North America’s best bank for corporate responsibility.

For the second year in a row, HSBC walks away with the award for Asia’s best bank – and deservedly so. Outgoing chief executive Noel Quinn’s decisive move in early 2020 to pivot to Asia by redeploying $100 billion in risk-weighted assets has delivered, generating strong new income streams and squeezing more gains from key product lines such as wealth management and transaction banking.

Most banks focus their corporate responsibility agendas on environmental, social and governance metrics and the drive to net zero, as well as on diversity and inclusion in terms of their customers and their own workforces. Banco Santander, western Europe’s best bank for corporate responsibility, has for many years looked beyond these core aspects of responsibility and found other ways to contribute to society.

BofA Securities faced tough competition to retain the award for Latin America’s best investment bank. Deal flow in international capital markets transactions was disappointing and local markets absorbed a larger proportion of financing than normal; a trend that played to strong local franchises rather than the US firm. Nevertheless, BofA’s strength – especially in the Andean region, where the bank won best investment bank awards in Chile, Colombia and Peru – saw it fend off the local challenge.

Brazil’s Nubank is the momentum story in global banking. In 2023, the bank added 19 million clients (to a total of 93.9 million), and it now can claim to bank 53% of the adult population of Brazil. It is also now seeing a positive operating leverage effect from the growth in its client base. In the fourth quarter of 2023, it recorded revenue of $2.4 billion (Nubank is listed on the NYSE and all its earnings are reported in dollars), which was up 57% on an annual basis. Net income jumped 489% to $360.9 million, with a return on equity of 23%.

Western Europe is the most competitive region in the world for investment banking. The big five US firms, with the ambition and capability to claim global leadership, all lead transactions for the continent’s biggest companies as well as for US and Asian multinationals acquiring and raising capital in Europe.

To be the best investment bank in the fastest growing continent you can’t just be here or there, you must be everywhere.

Once again, Morgan Stanley is Asia’s best bank for advisory. The investment bank was the undisputed leader in region-wide advisory during the awards period, notching $172 billion in completed and $117 billion in announced transactions.

Banco Santander’s wealth management proposition has been resonating in Latin America in recent years. It has been one of the big engines of growth for Santander’s wealth management and insurance division in 2023, which contributed €3.3 billion in profit to the group, up 21% year on year. The bank’s strong regional footprint – as well as its presence in the US and Europe – gives it a perfect competitive proposition for wealthy Latin Americans, who are increasingly interested in diversifying their portfolio into international assets and currencies.

Transaction banking clients faced many challenges in 2023, mostly as a result of the rapidly shifting interest rate environment. That made it vital to have a banking partner that could supply reliable advice on liquidity management.