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Vseobecna Uverova Banka (VUB) takes the best bank title in Slovakia on the back of a strong performance that made it the country’s most profitable banking group in 2008. Moreover, it continued this performance in the first quarter of this year when it was the only big banking group to grow operating profit, which rose by 21% year on year. The bank’s cost-income ratio at 48.9% in the first quarter was a full 10 percentage points better than its main competitors, which means the bank is well placed to withstand the deteriorating operating environment brought about by the global economic downturn. Despite growing its loan book nearly twice as fast as the market average over the past 18 months, the bank’s loan-to-deposit ratio remains at a comfortable level of 82%.

ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND: Offstage from RBS’s struggle to survive, the bank’s structured products franchise has continued to innovate and successfully market its ideas

CITI: Citi’s consistency in the debt capital markets of all developing regions makes the bank stand out

GOLDMAN SACHS: The concept of restructuring may have changed but Goldman remains the market leader

BLACKSTONE GROUP: The US house has demonstrated the benefits of geographical and business area diversification

In Europe, Santander stands out as one of the strong banks to which more has been given. From the crisis that convulsed the banking system in the past 12 months, it has emerged with positions in two of the continent’s largest economies, the UK and Germany, substantially bolstered by acquisitions from failing or retreating competitors.

North America has been firmly at the centre of the global financial crisis. From March 2008 to the end of April 2009, it lost some of its most revered banking institutions as asset prices continued to decline. Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Washington Mutual, to name but a few, went bankrupt or were swallowed up by competitors, while those swallowing them faced their own issues. It is hard to believe that those banks involved in high-profile mergers and acquisitions, or continually concerned by falling share prices or government intervention, could fully focus on managing their clients’ risk simultaneously. This year’s winners in North America reflect those banks that stayed open for business while others closed their doors, providing solutions for clients that were suffering from their own internal crises.

Citi and UBS, last year’s best bank and best investment bank in Asia respectively, are both among the institutions whose reputations and revenues were most battered in the past 12 months. The field seemed wide open for Asia’s regional players – and the banks less blasted by the misfortunes about which so much has been written – to step up. Standard Chartered, long considered boring for its focus on core banking businesses, is now feted as having weathered the crisis better than almost any other institution. It has spent the past 12 months becoming the region’s top underwriter of syndicated loans, making acquisitions such as that of broker Cazenove Asia to expand its capabilities, and growing its wholesale business in almost every market in which it operates. HSBC too has grown, becoming a consistent powerhouse in the region’s debt markets and benefiting from the renewed importance of flow businesses such as cash management and foreign exchange.

For banks in Georgia the big event over the past 12 months was not the financial crisis but the South Ossetia war between their government and the Russians last August. Against this unpropitious backdrop, Bank of Georgia continued to demonstrate its resilience, despite an almost 100% fall in profits in 2008. Revenues, for example, increased by 42.3%, and total assets by 10.3%. The bank was also able to raise funds in the international markets. It raised $443.7 million in long-term funding for instance.

While Citi globally was floundering and flirting with oblivion, Citibank Singapore was cementing its position as a head-on competitor to Singapore’s domestic banks. In fact, for its levels of growth across the board in a year when most have shrunk, it is the best bank in Singapore this year.

HSBC and Credit Suisse win top honours in Euromoney Awards for Excellence; Ackermann receives Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Contribution to Financial Markets

JPMORGAN: The US bank has led big, headline-grabbing deals in all the emerging regions