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Established in 1947 as Pakistan’s first commercial bank, HBL has consistently been at the forefront of the banking industry’s evolution. Last year, it solidified its position as a trailblazer, delivering impressive financial results while demonstrating its commitment to innovation. In recognition of this it receives the award for Pakistan’s best bank.

HSBC is a powerhouse in sustainable finance in Asia: a multiple winner of this award and for good reason.

BofA Securities faced tough competition to retain the award for Latin America’s best investment bank. Deal flow in international capital markets transactions was disappointing and local markets absorbed a larger proportion of financing than normal; a trend that played to strong local franchises rather than the US firm. Nevertheless, BofA’s strength – especially in the Andean region, where the bank won best investment bank awards in Chile, Colombia and Peru – saw it fend off the local challenge.

The bank’s 10-year ScotiaRise programme has gone from strength to strength, reaching out to indigenous communities and aligning with its truth and reconciliation committee’s work.

With a chief executive pushing sustainable finance from the very top, HSBC is leading from the front in the global banking industry’s response to the climate emergency.

The bank has made steady but still impressive improvement in its markets business over the last few years. And it was the firm among the 12 biggest to increase revenues in 2023.

It is in difficult times that the best franchises prove their mettle. JPMorgan’s formidable corporate and investment bank – now bolstered through its integration of commercial banking – was the one to beat over the last year. No rival can match its breadth, but the firm’s rejection of complacency means that it never stops improving.

In investment banking, the biggest event of the year was the €2 billion IPO of Hidroelectrica in Romania, Europe’s biggest IPO in 2023. This was Romania’s largest-ever IPO and played a role in reopening the market across the continent, thanks to a strong performance in the secondary market. It also helped reawaken the international capital market to the opportunities in central and eastern Europe.

For the second year in a row, HSBC walks away with the award for Asia’s best bank – and deservedly so. Outgoing chief executive Noel Quinn’s decisive move in early 2020 to pivot to Asia by redeploying $100 billion in risk-weighted assets has delivered, generating strong new income streams and squeezing more gains from key product lines such as wealth management and transaction banking.

Getting M&A right in Africa is not easy – big-ticket transactions are rare, and deal flow tends to come in fits and starts – but Standard Bank has got it down to a fine art.

Once again, Morgan Stanley is Asia’s best bank for advisory. The investment bank was the undisputed leader in region-wide advisory during the awards period, notching $172 billion in completed and $117 billion in announced transactions.

Banco Santander CIB’s steady progress in Brazil – by far Latin America’s biggest market for financing – coincided with a greater emphasis on local markets financing in 2023. The bank’s sweet spot, straddling local and international debt capital markets, as well as loan financing, meant that it had a very strong year across various debt segments. According to Dealogic, Santander CIB – which is led in the region by Rafael Noya, global head of global debt financing – was the leading underwriter of domestic DCM throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, helped by a second place in Brazil, where it took a 9% share of local issuance. Santander’s local strength was also supported by a strong showing in international DCM.