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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.

It’s not often any bank sits above JPMorgan in an important financing league table, but BNP Paribas far outstrips the US bank as a bookrunner both of syndicated loans and of debt capital markets deals for borrowers in western Europe.

Banco Pan’s unlikely transformation into a force in digital retail banking in Brazil began in 2010 with a $1.4 billion accounting fraud. The owner, Silvio Santos, a well-known media figure in Brazil, was forced to offload the bank (then called Banco Panamericano and specializing in car financing) to a partnership of state-owned Caixa Economica and investment bank BTG Pactual.

The region's best banks, country by country

The region's best banks, country by country

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.

Although the biggest universal banks regularly appear higher up the M&A advisory league tables by transaction value, Rothschild & Co works on far more deals than any competitor. According to Dealogic it advised on 222 deals in the 12 months under review compared with Goldman Sachs’s 132.

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.

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.

Amid the scramble for cash during the pandemic lockdowns, efficient treasury management was key to ensuring that companies made the most of the liquidity already available to them, minimizing the need for, and cost of, emergency measures. Corporates looked to free up otherwise trapped liquidity through techniques such as cash pooling, either through physical sweeping or – as the imperative to go digital mounts – through virtual accounts.

The award for the region’s best bank for corporate responsibility recognizes the holistic commitment to responsible banking of SME lender ProCredit Group.

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.