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Gabon

Ecobank Gabon delivered strong growth over the awards period while also expanding its product suite.

July 19, 2024

Western Europe’s best bank for wealth management: BNP Paribas Wealth Management

BNP Paribas Wealth Management operates across 17 countries, serving a client base of entrepreneurs, family offices and high net-worth individuals.

July 19, 2024

Uruguay

While one of the smaller banking markets in Latin America, Uruguay has some excellent banks that generate some exceptionally strong financial results. Part of that success is due to a consistently strong economic backdrop – and in 2023 significantly higher interest rates also helped. However, individual management teams can also take a large part of the credit and this year Banco Santander’s chief executive Gustavo Trelles repeats his success of last year by retaining the award for Uruguay’s best bank.

July 19, 2024

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic has long been considered one of the most attractive banking markets in central and eastern Europe in terms of the risk-return dynamic. All the top five banks are foreign-owned, and the sector has been relatively consistent in terms of its earnings. The higher interest-rate environment, so far, has reinforced the sector’s good profitability, despite a new tax on bank profits, not least because asset quality has remained healthy.

July 19, 2024

Argentina

Welcome to the optimistic part of the cycle for Argentina: international investment banks re-rate the outlook for the small cohort of large, listed banks and those banks start to look to consolidate. The last cycle saw equity issuance, but the banks had barely topped up the funds in their M&A war chests before the optimism faded away alongside their newly positive book values.

July 19, 2024

Awards for Excellence

CEE’s best bank for financing: BNP Paribas

It is not normally thought of as one of the banks with a large stronghold on central and eastern Europe. Nevertheless, BNP Paribas still owns relatively large banks in what are, in effect after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the region’s two biggest markets in terms of banking: Poland and Turkey.

July 19, 2024

Ireland

The awards period marked a triumphant return to performance for Allied Irish Banks (AIB), Ireland’s best bank. Putting behind it its involvement in the years-long industry-wide tracker mortgage scandal in Ireland, for which it was fined €100 million in 2022, the bank posted a very strong recovery in 2023, with record profits that nearly tripled versus the previous year. Revenues rose 62%, driven by net interest income that was up more than 80%.

July 19, 2024

Awards for Excellence

Africa’s best bank for financing: Standard Bank

In a year (very) short on equity capital markets activity, it was in the debt and the loan market that Standard Bank shone brightest in 2023.

July 19, 2024

Angola

Banco Angolano de Investimentos (BAI) posted impressive financial results for 2023. Profit before tax stood at AKz220 billion ($250 million), almost double its 2022 result (AKz115 billion), and the bank achieved a return on equity of 36%, up from 26% the year before.

July 19, 2024

Azerbaijan

Prospects for the Azerbaijani banking sector continue to improve as bank balance sheets strengthen and tighter regulatory oversight is established. Nowhere is this more evident than at Bank ABB – International Bank of Azerbaijan – which has made good progress since the decisive resolution of its legacy risks in 2022.

July 19, 2024

Romania

Romania was the place of perhaps the most important bank M&A deal to be announced in 2023: the merger of the local units of Italian group UniCredit and Greece’s Alpha Bank. The deal promised to allow UniCredit, as the owner of 90% of the merged entity, to supplant Societe Generale-owned BRD as the country’s third-biggest bank.

July 19, 2024

Latvia

Despite the Latvian economy dipping into recession last year, the banking sector delivered impressive bottom-line growth, with total profits almost doubling year on year to €622 million.

July 19, 2024

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