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Overall 2023 was a challenging year for Colombia’s economy and most of its large banks would have felt reasonably happy with their static performance. But BBVA managed to outperform the market in most banking segments. The firm ended last year as the leading foreign bank in the country and the fourth largest in the financial sector, with an 11.2% market share in terms of assets. However, it was the growth in the difficult conditions that sealed the award for Colombia’s best bank. BBVA grew total loans by 6.4% in the year and increased its market share by 50 basis points to 11.6%, led by an 8.5% increase in loans to individuals, which took market share of that segment to 14.9%, a 106bp rise.

It is hardly surprising that an Italian bank should excel at lending to small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the backbone of the industrial strategy of the country. SMEs are at the heart of UniCredit’s UniCredit per l’Italia strategy, which has seen a further €10 billion of support extended to individuals and corporates this year – including a special assistance package for Emilia Romagna in May in response to widespread flooding.

After being knocked back by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Kazakhstan’s economy rebounded last year, notching up over 5% growth on strong levels of consumer and public spending.

International banks inevitably capture a large share of international debt issuance from Poland, notably the sovereign and large commercial banks. But Trigon remains a national success story in investment banking as a purely Polish and private-sector player. It has a large local team that includes one of the country’s most extensive equity research capabilities.

Cross-border transactions involving multiple products that combine advisory, equity and debt financing are the bread and butter of a franchise like RBC Capital Markets. The firm’s performance in 2023 makes it a worthy winner of the award for Canada’s best investment bank.

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.

Techcombank further solidified its leadership in Vietnam’s banking sector in 2023. This has been driven by its five-year transformation journey focusing on investments in digital, data and talent under chief executive Jens Lottner, who took the helm in 2020.

For its range and quality of corporate banking services, investment in digital, and financial performance, Kotak Mahindra Bank wins the award of India's best bank for corporates this year.

The Bolivian financial system has been facing dollar scarcity for more than a year now and the impact on the economy has been predictably negative, with Fitch recently downgrading the country to CCC from B-. It has been a long running crisis, with the strongest and best bank in the system Banco Mercantil Santa Cruz (BMSC), playing an important role in providing much-needed liquidity. One of the peaks of the liquidity crunch came in March 2023 and BMSC played a systemically important role by meeting dollar demand when it had evaporated from many other banks.

The strategic case for banks to remain in central and eastern Europe remains intact: that is the official line from Scope Ratings at least. The agency found that faster growth and higher interest rates in CEE have, overall, boosted the profitability of western European banks present in the region.

NLB Banka is Montenegro’s best bank, having demonstrated strong growth and development last year, which in turn contributed to its record bottom line.

It is not enough to have the data, banks also need to bring intelligence and financial analysis to bear in sustainable finance to keep progressing.