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BofA Securities has had a busy year in which it demonstrated impressive breadth of deal-flow across countries, as well as regional leadership in two of the main product areas. Not only was the bank the best investment bank in Colombia and Peru, but it was also a close challenger for the Mexican and Brazilian awards. It is this unmatched geographical balance that makes BofA the region’s leading investment bank.

Despite its growth into one of biggest banks in Romania, small and medium-sized enterprises remain core to the strategy of Banca Transilvania and SMEs constitute a large proportion of its lending. In 2021, its SME loan portfolio reached L19.2 billion ($4.06 billion), with L3.7 billion of new loans during the year, reaching 18,000 SMEs and micro-enterprises.

Greater support for capital-light investment banking business at UniCredit since the arrival of Andrea Orcel as chief executive in early 2021 is fostering a change in mindset in the firm’s advisory franchise. The region’s best bank for advisory also brought support in terms of product and sector expertise thanks to hires in Munich and Milan. That’s adding to the bank’s existing advantages in terms of geographic coverage, which includes around 50 M&A bankers spread across eight central and eastern European markets.

Central and eastern Europe’s best bank for corporate responsibility this year inevitably goes to an institution that has focused on aid for Ukrainian refugees. For many banks in the region, this was an overwhelming priority during the first days and weeks of the war.

The region's best banks, country by country

The successful growth of BAC International Bank throughout central America and the Caribbean region led to the bank being spun off from parent Banco de Bogotá. Although the bank is no longer part of this group – it has its own listing in Panama – the primary shareholders remain Banco de Bogotá and Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo, chief executive of Grupo Aval.

BTG Pactual’s recent success has been based in large part on the digital platform that it has built in recent years. The bank targets opportunities where financial deepening, disintermediation and technological adoption intersect in Latin America.

BTG Pactual isn’t new to winning Euromoney’s regional awards for excellence – but previous successes have been for the bank’s investment banking franchise. This year, Euromoney recognizes BTG Pactual’s successful reversal of the orthodox model of business evolution from retail and corporate banking to investment banking.

It was a knife-edge decision between Citi, stronger in top-end cash management, and HSBC, stronger in trade, this year. Last year, we decided trade was the theme to reward in a Covid-blighted year; this year we looked at progress in payments, where Citi had an excellent year.

Now, hear us out. A year ago, we were griping about Citi’s decision to sell consumer businesses in a clutch of Asian markets. The only way it made sense, we argued, was if Citi put its money where its mouth is: deployed the freed capital into its wealth and institutional businesses in Asia and doubled down on that with tangible action, rather than the proceeds just drifting into some vague balance-sheet objective.

Best Bank: BTG Pactual

In investment banking, deals were already becoming harder to do in central and eastern Europe before Russia invaded Ukraine, as interest rates began to creep up in the second half of 2021. Executing deals has since become even harder both because of the war and because of those rate rises.