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The region's best banks, country by country

A strong hold on the foreign currency and fixed income markets in countries such as Nigeria and Kenya proved a vital asset for Standard Bank over the last 12 months, as South Africa suffered particularly damaging Covid-19 lockdowns. Largely because of this regional investment banking structure, coupled with provisioning for credit losses in South Africa, the group made almost twice as much money in the rest of Africa as it did in South Africa in 2020 – highlighting how much Standard Bank is now a pan-African play for investors.

Citi wins this award in part because it was so successful in securing a role for itself in the region’s big Spac deals. The US bank completed 11 M&A transactions in the year to the end of March 2021, worth a total of $53.3 billion, according to Dealogic data, for a 37% market share.

At the end of the first quarter of 2021, UBS’s Americas wealth management unit had more than $1.6 trillion in invested assets, up 34% on the previous year, a record for the firm. In a client satisfaction survey over the 12-month period of these awards, the bank scored 9.6 out of 10, based on 35,000 responses. And the division made a profit of $1.45 billion, another record.

Many banks could press strong claims to be western Europe’s best investment bank for the first year of Covid – when all issuers desperately needed financing, corporations and sovereigns sought strategic advice and investors required ideas and liquidity to rapidly adjust market exposures.

This category highlights the range of different themes through which banks do responsible work and this year we look at Citi’s efforts with youth in the region. Youth unemployment is already a serious problem in Asia and the pandemic made it a whole lot worse. Citi’s focus on the issue deserves recognition.

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.

ESG has surged in importance as a financing theme in Latin America over the past 12 months. Financial institutions of all sizes and types have been scrambling to emphasize how the components of ESG are now core to business strategy. It’s often hard to see through the messaging, but that’s not the case with Santander. The bank is truly a leader in embedding sustainable finance in the business. Its group executive chairman Ana Botín has championed the bank’s net-zero carbon ambitions, but it’s under the leadership of Santander’s group chief executive, Jose Antonio Álvarez, that the bank has become a sustainability leader in Latin America.

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.

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.

For the first time since 2014, the award for Asia’s best investment bank goes to Goldman Sachs.

An unrivalled regional network presence, commitment to innovation and consistent support for clients during the pandemic earn Citi the award for CEE’s best bank for transaction services.