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LATEST ARTICLES
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BDO Unibank has worked on sustainable finance in the Philippines since 2010.
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BDO Unibank, the Philippines’ largest bank, turned in an exceptional financial performance in 2023, cementing its position as the country’s best bank.
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Citi saw impressive growth over 2023 with revenue growth of 16% year on year.
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OCBC wins the award as Singapore's best digital bank this year for enhancing its digital banking service through a series of initiatives designed to deepen engagement and improve the user experience across its platforms.
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Hana Bank accounted for 13% of system loans and 15% of system deposits in South Korea by the end of 2023. The bank enjoys a strong domestic franchise, particularly in corporate banking, which has driven a sustained improvement in profitability despite the challenging economic backdrop.
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Bank Syariah Indonesia (BSI) – established in 2021 following the merger of Bank BRI Syariah, Bank Syariah Mandiri and Bank BNI Syariah – is a leader in Indonesia’s shariah banking system. It had reached 19 million customers by May 2023, and is Indonesia's sixth-largest bank.
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For its range of initiatives and substantial investment in supporting social and environmental issues in the special administrative region, Bank of China (Hong Kong) wins the award this year.
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Citi secures the award for Korea’s best investment bank in recognition of its comprehensive range of activity across M&A advisory, debt capital markets and equity capital markets.
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In 2023, Citi saw operating revenues reach around ¥139 billion ($860 million) and total assets climb to ¥6,097 billion.
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Citi saw impressive growth across its corporate banking services in Hong Kong in 2023. It saw year-on-year growth in its loan portfolio and funded several significant environmental, social and governance (ESG) financing transactions.
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Cathay United Bank improved its digital customer service last year and employed artificial intelligence and big data tools to better understand its customers’ credit metrics. This resulted in record digital growth for the bank, with digital user penetration up by nearly 50% over 2022.
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RCBC launched its new RCBC Pulz digital banking app in 2023 and continued to support for digital inclusion.
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RCBC expanded its digital offering for small and medium-sized enterprises and saw impressive growth in the segment in 2023. The SME loans portfolio grew by 16.6% to P125.3 billion ($2.15 billion) over the year.
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Newly onboarded corporate customers at HSBC grew by 21% last year. It introduced Smartserve, which reduces the number of days required to open an account, and Omni Collect, which simplifies the way businesses collect payments.
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In 2023, HSBC saw its market share of foreign investment into Malaysia reach 30% of total assets under management, making it the leading custodian and clearing bank for foreign institutional investors investing in country’s capital markets. HSBCnet Get Rate, which provides its Malaysian customers with automatic preferential FX rates, was upgraded to allow 24/7 FX booking for companies with EU and US headquarters.
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HSBC grew profit before tax by 188% in 2023 to SLR38.2 billion ($126 million).
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HSBC had a good year in India in 2023, with profits up by 19% to $1.51 billion, from $1.27 billion the previous year.
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HSBC achieved robust growth in 2023 with net profit growing 26% to total $566 million, with growth coming from its commercial, wealth and personal banking businesses.
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Throughout 2023, HSBC expanded its presence in the mainland Chinese market, strengthening its operations and advancing strategic initiatives across many sectors.
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HSBC introduced initiatives to tackle parental leave, diversity in its hiring process and to improve support for its transgender employees in Hong Kong last year.
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In 2023, HSBC further solidified its position as Hong Kong’s best bank under the leadership of Luanne Lim, HSBC Hong Kong’s chief executive. HSBC Group’s market profit before tax soared to $10.7 billion, representing 80% year-on-year growth and contributing 35.3% to the group’s overall pre-tax profit.
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HSBC helped Singaporean companies like Next Gen Foods and Multiplier Technologies expand overseas in 2023. It also scaled up its support for local businesses expansion in the region by introducing a $1 billion ASEAN (Association of southeast Asian Nations) growth fund for digital platform businesses and a $150 million venture debt offering aimed at scaling high growth companies.
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OCBC had a busy 2023, launching new FX features, application programming interface (API) integration and improvements to its online platform.
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OCBC NISP proved an invaluable partner to its small and medium-sized enterprise clients in Indonesia throughout 2023 with the launch of its Nyala Bisnis 2.0 platform and initiatives to empower women-owned SMEs.
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The banking environment in Tunisia worsened last year due to the absence of a financing package to meet the government’s funding needs. This led to Moody's downgrading four banks in January 2023 because of the sovereign downgrade. The agency changed its outlook on the sector to stable in January 2024.
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Banks in Ghana have faced a difficult couple of years thanks to the government of Ghana’s debt default and domestic debt exchange programme announced in November 2022.
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Goldman Sachs has been the preeminent mergers and acquisitions advisory firm for almost as long as the business has existed in its modern form. Its performance in the difficult environment of 2023 showed how resilient its franchise is, and it once again wins the award for North America’s best bank for advisory.
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Raiffeisen Bank is Albania’s best bank this year in recognition of its retail, corporate and treasury banking services, and its strong financial performance during the year. This was demonstrated across product and service enhancements in its main three banking businesses.
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The banking sector in DR Congo is undergoing transition. The central bank has proposed new ownership requirements for banks in the country, stipulating that they must have at least four unrelated shareholders. At the same time, large banks outside the country, such as Kenya’s KCB and Equity Bank, are eyeing the market as a potential growth opportunity – hardly surprising when less than a third of the DR Congolese population has a bank account.
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North America’s Best Digital Bank: Bank of America
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Lithuanian banks successfully shrugged off a stagnating economy and the government’s windfall tax last year to double net profits.
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The recent move by Greek lender Eurobank to establish a majority stake in Hellenic Bank, Cyprus’ second largest bank, is a potentially transformational deal for the island’s banking sector. During the awards review period, however, it was still unclear when or if Eurobank would be able to merge its existing Cypriot business with Hellenic, but if it does, it could become the largest bank in the country.
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Scotiabank has long championed a variety of environmental, social and governance (ESG) priorities in its business and considers walking the talk to be crucial in its home region. For its continued commitment to doing things right, Scotiabank is North America’s best bank for corporate responsibility.
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In 2023, central and eastern Europe’s M&A markets held up relatively well, with a total deal value of more than $30 billion according to Dealogic. Lazard, CEE’s best bank for advisory, was involved in many of the most important advisory situations in the region.
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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.
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For HSBC, 2023 was an important year at its UK ring-fenced bank. This delivered its strongest set of results since it was created in 2018, with revenue coming in 36% higher than in 2022. That was in part thanks to higher rates and fat net interest margins, but also to key strategic decisions, such as to make growing market share in mortgages a priority.
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Despite the overbearing presence in Hungary of national champion OTP – and the emergence in 2023 of a much larger government-owned lender in the form of MBH Bank – international firms continue to compete in the domestic market. The biggest of these international players is K&H Bank, owned by Brussels-based group KBC.
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The 100th anniversary of Isbank, Turkey’s biggest private-sector lender, has come after some challenging years for the country's economy and financial sector.
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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.
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CTBC Bank has cemented its position in Taiwan’s best bank over the past year. Driven by its dual track digital innovation and environmental, social and governance (ESG) based transformation, the bank achieved a record net profit of NT$41.3 billion ($1.3 billion) in 2023, with a cost-to-income ratio of 55.16% and a return on equity of 11.9%, the highest among its peers. Revenue and pre-tax profit grew by 16% and 12%, respectively.
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Access Bank made profit before tax of N569 billion ($380 million) in 2023, a big improvement on the previous year's N163 billion. This was in part due to the devaluation of the naira in 2023, but was also driven by the bank’s aggressive expansion strategy, which has seen its footprint in Africa expand and the establishment of its first branch in France.
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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.
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Banca Intesa Beograd had standout year in 2023, launching a number of key initiatives and delivering another set of record results.
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For the volume of sustainable finance being provided to the Turkish economy, as well as innovation in sustainability products, Akbank wins the award as best bank for environmental, social and governance this year.
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Millennium bim, Euromoney’s best bank in Mozambique this year, has focused its efforts on technological improvements during the period under review.
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By far the biggest bank by assets in the country and boasting nine million account holders, ING is also the best bank in the Netherlands this year.
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Despite the Estonian economy experiencing a severe recession last year, the country’s banking sector remained robust and continued to generate stellar growth, supported by the resilience of companies and households facing higher interest rates.
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HSBC is a powerhouse in sustainable finance in Asia: a multiple winner of this award and for good reason.
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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.
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Tourism is central to the economy of the Bahamas and the country continued to recover from the pandemic-enforced lockdowns with strong GDP growth of more than 4% in 2023. Scotiabank’s business in the country similarly continues to improve from the Covid years and, in 2023, the bank achieved its highest profitability for 15 years with net income of $70.3 million, up by almost 46% year on year. The bank’s management attributes this to a range of initiatives executed in previous years, such as the branch network optimization strategy and revenue enhancement strategies to progressively lower operating costs and boost revenues.
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Slightly later than expected, early 2023 saw the legal completion of OTP’s takeover of Nova KBM, Slovenia’s second-biggest bank, first announced in mid 2021. OTP announced in mid April 2024 that it planned to merge Nova KBM with SKB banka – which it bought from Societe Generale in 2019 – in the second half of 2024, subject to regulatory approvals. OTP said the merged entity’s brand will be OTP banka and it will be the country’s biggest bank, overtaking national champion NLB.
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The economies of central America have been growing rapidly since the end of the pandemic. Some of this is the natural rebound of economic activity among countries that have outsized tourist sectors; and increased spending in this sector is one of the leading themes of the past couple of years.
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Stanbic Bank Uganda (SBU) turned in a strong performance over the review period. Net profit was USh421 billion ($110 million), up 18% from USh357 billion in 2022. Net loans increased to USh4 trillion, while deposits ended the year at USh6 trillion, both up 3% on 2022.
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As the equity capital markets remained sluggish across Europe last year, financing activity was all about debt. So, it is perhaps no surprise that western Europe’s best bank for financing this year is the one that dominated the debt capital markets league tables working on 509 deals worth $128 billion equivalent for a 7% market share: BNP Paribas. Even in ECM, the French firm ranked number five behind sector leaders BofA Securities and Goldman Sachs.
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For a global lender, Citi’s investment-banking presence in Africa is hard to compete with. The US firm has an onshore presence in 16 countries and covers 38 markets, with a dedicated team in Johannesburg supported by corporate bankers across the region.
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For a small economy, Luxembourg boasts many banks: 120 were authorized in 2023. Many of these primarily serve international clients, in particular providing securities services to institutional investors from across Europe and beyond.
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Societe Generale has accelerated its transition and is using important mandates to convince its internal and external audiences alike.
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Until recently investment banking in central America and the Caribbean was about having the best debt offering. The few international debt capital market mandates were obviously crucial to gain this credibility, but a presence in dollar and local-currency loans was also critical. Today it’s more complicated. The equity capital market still doesn’t really feature, but sustainable finance is crucial to the region. Moreover, the growing cross-border presence of many companies active in these countries means that transaction and treasury services are now areas of true competitive differentiation.
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The bank’s chief executive has led from the front to create an institution that is more diverse and better reflects the society in which it works.
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Khan Bank, Mongolia’s largest bank with a 30% market share, receives the award as the country’s best bank in recognition of its solid growth and the successful completion of its initial public offering.
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Standard Bank successfully implemented innovative digital products across all banking segments in 2023 while also making important philanthropic contributions in Malawi.
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Even its rivals in Spain admit to feeling the impact last year as CaixaBank moved on from integrating Bankia to concentrating more exclusively on developing its business organically. This is evident, for example, in the savings market, where its customer funds increased by 3.1% in 2023. In insurance, a vital part of the group’s activities, there was also healthy growth, with a 7% volume growth in general and life risk premiums.
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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%.
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Ecobank Gabon delivered strong growth over the awards period while also expanding its product suite.
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First Bank of Nigeria (FirstBank) wins the best bank for corporates award this year for its investment in digital, support of sustainability and the financial performance it has delivered.
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It has been a great time to be a Greek banker. Rating agencies returned the sovereign to investment grade in 2023 and the country’s lenders, having reduced non-performing loans and cost of risk while rebuilding capital ratios, also delivered improved profits.
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Banreservas’ president Samuel Pereyra would argue that as a state-owned bank, all of its activities are led by a sense of corporate responsibility. Its loan portfolios are directed towards providing credit to industries targeted as crucial for the Dominican economy’s growth and its recent international expansion has been developed to facilitate financing flows between the country and its large international diaspora.
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Equity Bank continued to grow its total assets in 2023, surpassing the KSh1 trillion ($7.7 billion) mark at the end of the year. The bank maintained a third of its consumer loans to salaried civil servants, teachers and private-sector employees at 13% interest, despite the central bank hiking rates much higher.
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NLB Banka is Montenegro’s best bank, having demonstrated strong growth and development last year, which in turn contributed to its record bottom line.
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BNP Paribas Wealth Management operates across 17 countries, serving a client base of entrepreneurs, family offices and high net-worth individuals.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Paraguay continues to prove that a raft of business-friendly economic policies can pay off in Latin America, with the small landlocked country enjoying GDP growth of 4.5%. Part of that bump was due to the recovery from the previous year’s drought, but economists are confident of another year of growth above 3% in 2024.
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In 2023, HSBC further solidified its position as Hong Kong’s best bank. Under the leadership of Luanne Lim, HSBC Hong Kong’s chief executive, the bank’s profit before tax soared to $10.7 billion, representing 80% year-on-year growth and contributing 35.3% to the group’s overall pre-tax profit.
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Peruvian banks had a difficult time in 2023, with zero GDP growth and a material contraction in domestic demand. However, inflation did begin to subside during the second half of the year, which led the central bank to reduce the reference interest rate for Peruvian soles by 100 basis points, ending the year at 6.25%. This reduction had a mixed impact for banks, lowering the average net interest margin but improving the country’s economic outlook.
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Societe Generale Côte d’Ivoire is again named the best bank in the country after a year in which profit before tax was up 32% at CFEFr120 billion ($42 million) from CFEFr91 billion in 2022. The bank has shown strong commitment to the Ivory Coast despite exiting other African markets such as the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Mauritania and Chad. Indeed, Societe Generale deputy CEO of the group Pierre Palmieri visited Abidjan last year to reinforce this.
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Market doubts, three years ago, about whether Andrea Orcel’s management of UniCredit would be sufficiently orientated to shareholder value have proven to be far from the mark. Orcel might have shied away from a deal with the Italian government to buy Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena in 2021, but this has not prevented UniCredit from remaining a large and growing part of the European banking story.
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Nothing shows BBVA’s ability to harness what was once viewed as a disparate set of national banks around Latin America into a cohesive, integrated banking institution better than the success of its transaction services business.
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If there was ever a time that demonstrated JPMorgan’s credentials as the country’s best bank, it was the crisis in March and April 2023 when US regional banks suddenly faced a balance sheet reckoning triggered by the rapid change in interest rates.
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It was a mixed year in Austrian banking in 2023. Higher eurozone interest rates bolstered banks’ net interest margins, but at the end of the year the bankruptcy of Austrian real estate group Signa shone the spotlight on what Moody’s said was €2.2 billion of lending by Austrian banks to Signa.
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BNP Paribas has enviable sustainable finance credentials globally, but Latin America has become a particular area of strength for the French bank. In 2023, it led on some truly landmark transactions for clients throughout the region and can claim to be leading the evolution of sustainable finance in Latin America.
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While Mexico is at the centre of the nearshoring debate, Costa Rica is quietly getting the job done. In 2023 the country attracted foreign direct investment inflows equal to 12% of its economy, which in turn drove economic growth above 5%. Costa Rica has long been an appealing place to develop service companies that sell into the US, including 170 shared service centres that perform back office and strategic operations for parent companies.
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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.
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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.
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Zambia National Commercial Bank (Zanaco) is again Euromoney’s best bank in Zambia. Profit before tax increased 44% year on year to KK1.74 billion ($65 million), including a 109% boost in the third quarter driven by income earned on government securities, trading and an uptick in net fees and commission.
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Commerzbank has seen a remarkable bounce back in its profitability and share price over the past four years, something that was particularly apparent in 2023. The year began with its re-inclusion in the DAX in February, five years after it was ejected from the index of German blue-chip stocks. This was thanks to a dramatic recovery in its share price from the depths it hit during the early Covid-19 period.
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The fourth-biggest bank in Portugal, which has been fully owned by Spain’s CaixaBank since the end of 2018, saw an exceptional performance in 2023. After record results for the firm across the board, Banco BPI is clear winner of the award for Portugal’s best bank.
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The fourth-biggest bank in Portugal, which has been fully owned by Spain’s CaixaBank since the end of 2018, saw an exceptional performance in 2023. After record results for the firm across the board, Banco BPI is clear winner of the award for Portugal’s best bank.
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There are many ways in which banks can demonstrate their commitment to social responsibility and some come amid the most challenging times. The devastating earthquake in southern Turkey at the beginning of last year triggered an immediate response in support for the affected communities from the country’s corporate and banking sectors.
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Kasikornbank (KBank) receives the award for Thailand’s best bank in in recognition of its commitment to enhancing asset quality in a challenging market and its dedication to sustainability initiatives.
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While political protests in Tbilisi introduced some additional risk to the Georgian economy last year, economic growth remained robust thanks to strong domestic demand and capital inflows from tourism and exports.
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Life for small and medium-sized enterprises is rarely comfortable. Even when your business is faring well, the capricious nature of policymakers and markets can upend carefully laid plans.
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CAC International demonstrated a robust financial performance last year, with assets growing by 8% to $536 million and profit before tax reaching $2.374 million, a 38% increase year on year.
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SEB, a regular winner of this award, certainly did not rest on its laurels in 2023, posting strong financial results and was able to boast a host of developments across its franchises. For its consistently dominant performance, it is once again Sweden’s best bank.
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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.
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Under group chief executive Andrea Orcel, UniCredit has reaffirmed its commitment to central and eastern Europe – highlighted by its announcement of the €300 million purchase of Alpha Bank Romania, part of a deal that also involved it taking a stake in the Athens-based group.
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The bank is willing to spend its considerable technology budget on both exciting new ideas and on existing services that improve the lives of its customers.
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In a difficult economic landscape, Eastern Bank has once again proven its mettle, delivering impressive growth and financial performance in 2023. The bank’s net profit surged by 19.6%, while its assets rose by 11.5%. This is particularly noteworthy considering the high base set in 2022. Return on equity improved to 16.3% from 15.5% in 2022.
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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.
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HSBC was the standout candidate in this award this year, dominating transaction banking in Asia.
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While Honduras has shifted its political allegiance to China – it ended diplomatic relations with Taiwan in an attempt to win investment from the Asian superpower – its real problems lie closer to home. The economy is stuck in a remittances trap, with annual payments from its diaspora back to the country worth almost 30% of GDP, which is the highest ratio in the region.
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Morocco-based Bank of Africa boasts a long and storied history as a leading lender to regional small and medium-sized enterprises. Last year, it secured a €50 million credit line from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to increase financing for SMEs across the continent.
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Even its rivals in Spain admit to feeling the impact last year as CaixaBank moved on from integrating Bankia to concentrating more exclusively on developing its business organically. This is evident, for example, in the savings market, where its customer funds increased by 3.1% in 2023. In insurance, a vital part of the group’s activities, there was also healthy growth, with a 7% volume growth in general and life risk premiums.
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Giving state-owned lenders awards for commercial banking is typically something Euromoney is reluctant to do, especially in former Communist countries. But anyone who knows Ukraine knows that PrivatBank is not your average former Soviet state-owned bank.
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As in so many other areas of the bank’s franchise, JPMorgan’s wealth management performance in 2023 was a good illustration of the unique qualities of the US’s preeminent banking institution. It is North America’s best bank for wealth management.
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Societe Generale’s global reputation as a driver of green and sustainable principles and investment, plus its long presence across Africa, combine to make the Paris-based lender a clear winner of this award on the continent.
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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.
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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.
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Banco Santander’s wealth management proposition has been resonating in Latin America in recent years. It has been one of the big engines of growth for Santander’s wealth management and insurance division in 2023, which contributed €3.3 billion in profit to the group, up 21% year on year. The bank’s strong regional footprint – as well as its presence in the US and Europe – gives it a perfect competitive proposition for wealthy Latin Americans, who are increasingly interested in diversifying their portfolio into international assets and currencies.
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A spike in Armenian bank M&A this year has underscored the growth opportunity for banks in the local market. The country’s best bank, Ameriabank, was bought by Bank of Georgia earlier this year, and Ardshinbank is in the process of acquiring HSBC Armenia.
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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.
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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.
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BBVA achieved impressive momentum in Latin America during 2023, winning individual best bank awards in Colombia and Mexico, and coming close in Peru. Its bank in Argentina also posted respectable growth and is poised to take advantage of a potentially more benign economic outlook. The Spanish firm also capitalized on its market leading position in Mexico to win the award for the country’s best investment bank and is also Latin America’s best bank for transaction services – a landmark win in an sector that has traditionally been dominated by US banks.
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In recognition of multiple market-leading developments in its banking business and an impressive financial performance last year, maib is Moldova’s best bank.
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Bank SinoPac has long focused on initiatives to promote responsible and inclusive finance, primarily by channelling loans to small businesses. The total outstanding of such lending to small and medium-sized enterprises was NT$325 billion ($10 billion) at the end of 2023.
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El Salvador’s economy is performing poorly considering that its president Nayib Bukele recently won a landslide presidential election. His popularity belies an economy that has been blighted by high inflation, rising poverty and low growth.
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First National Bank of Botswana delivered significant improvements in financial performance last year and made good progress in digital transformation, customer retention and social responsibility.
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Under the steady leadership of chief executive Kjerstin Braathen, Norway’s biggest bank continues to perform strongly and is far from relaxing its efforts just because of its size. DNB faces an surprising array of competition in such a small market, with more than 100 banks operating in the country, but its progress ensures it remains Norway’s best bank for another year.
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The bank is leveraging all its resources to reach six million individuals by 2025. It is well on its way.
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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.
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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.
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Things could not have gone much worse in 2023 for Islandsbanki, the bank that won this award in the past two years. A long-awaited regulatory report into the sale of part of the government’s holding in 2022 found that Islandsbanki itself had committed various violations during the process. Islandsbanki was fined Isk1.2 billion ($8.6 million), a record for Iceland.
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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.
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Most banks focus their corporate responsibility agendas on environmental, social and governance metrics and the drive to net zero, as well as on diversity and inclusion in terms of their customers and their own workforces. Banco Santander, western Europe’s best bank for corporate responsibility, has for many years looked beyond these core aspects of responsibility and found other ways to contribute to society.
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Equity Bank Kenya claims its mission is to empower clients and stakeholders, both socially and economically.
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Often this award goes to the bank that has done a particularly good job of providing useful digital features through a smartphone app to retail customers. This year we recognize a wholesale bank, most renowned for the technology behind its CashPro offering for payments, receivables, liquidity and FX management. Bank of America is western Europe’s best digital bank.
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Transaction services are a vital part of UniCredit’s rationale as a pan-European bank, and its leadership in this area is particularly evident in central and eastern Europe, where the bank’s regional head of transactions and payments is Riccardo Madinelli.
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Benefiting from robust economic growth in the country, Uzbekistan’s banking sector continued its rapid expansion last year and one bank led the pack, SQB, the country’s second largest lender.
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Dominican Republic president Luis Abinader’s election win was good news for state-controlled bank Banreservas because it ensures stability in senior management, led by the bank’s president Samuel Pereyra, at a time when it is on something of a roll.
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Since its foundation in 1885 as a cooperative and mutual bank, social usefulness has been central to Crédit Agricole’s business model. It was an early pioneer of sustainable finance. It was one of the first banks to commit to exiting the thermal coal industry by 2030 in OECD countries and by 2040 for the rest of the world.
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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.
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Few banks have navigated turbulent times so well, posting record revenues on the back of strong net inflows and rising markets.
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The ability to work seamlessly across markets and asset classes paid off for the US firm in a challenging year.
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Yet again, DBS stands head and shoulders above the field in Asian wealth management.
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Belgium-based KBC’s Bulgarian unit formally merged with former Raiffeisen International Bank subsidiary United Bulgarian Bank (UBB) in 2023, creating the country’s biggest bank. KBC had completed the legal acquisition of RBI’s operations in Bulgaria in 2022. Most of the synergies of the merger were, therefore, far from being realised in 2023 as the operational integration was only just beginning.
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Nedbank wins the best digital bank in Africa award for the second year in a row, courtesy of its push to reform and re-engineer its IT system, with the aim of cutting costs, attracting new business and favouring an approach that focuses on evolution rather than revolution.
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MUFG, Japan’s largest bank, had an excellent financial year in the 12 months to March 2024, setting new records for the group.
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In each of equity and debt capital markets, syndicated loans and M&A advisory, Truist Securities ranked higher than its super-regional peers in 2023, according to Dealogic. For its consistency and the progress it has made since the merger of SunTrust and BB&T that created the firm at the end of 2019, Truist wins the award for the US’s best super-regional investment bank this year.
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DemirBank is Kyrgyzstan’s best bank in recognition of an impressive performance last year.
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Scotiabank is delivering on the promise of its 2018 acquisition of BBVA’s bank in Chile by consolidating its position as the third-largest private sector bank and is now closing in on second place. The bank closed 2023 with a 14% market share and, according to Fitch Ratings, the best risk rating in the industry. In Chile, Scotiabank enjoyed the highest income growth in the financial system. A combination of fierce cost control and increased digital penetration enabled the bank to generate a 41% efficiency ratio and significant savings. The other side of the balance sheet was also strong: revenues grew 10%. The bank’s operating income grew 9% and its return on equity rose to 12.3%.
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‘Being there’ is one of Citi’s many skills. It is always there for clients: underwriting stock offerings, printing bonds and taking the lead on bridge loans to support complex acquisitions.
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Ecobank Guinea rolled out its Xpress Loan service in Guinea last year, which enables customers to obtain short-term micro credit loans using their mobile phones. The service was launched in partnership with Dubai fintech Optasia and pan-African telecommunications giant MTN.
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The bank has cleaned up its books, closed branches and improved its cost-to-income ratio. It also paid its first dividend since 2008.
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The bank has become a global payments powerhouse, delivering innovation and outperformance.
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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.
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Citi stands head and shoulders above its rivals in this category. The products it generates are designed to help day-to-day business for all its clients, be they global corporates working in and across Africa, or African firms scaling up their regional and international presence.
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The Belgian government’s retail bond programme last year, which pressured lenders to raise deposits, was just one element of a relatively tough environment for banks in Belgium. The country also sits at the opposite end of the spectrum to southern Europe in terms of the proportion of loans on floating-rate deals, meaning local banks benefit less from higher eurozone interest rates.
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Goldman is transforming its provision of research and insights to make it much easier for investors to form trade ideas.
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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.
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Nerves were jangling hard in Europe last year, when the panic that had seen many tens of billions of dollars’ worth of deposits flee large US regional banks in a matter of hours suddenly began emerging in Europe.
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Nearly all banks today make claims to be helping to save the planet in one way or another. One that has consistently done more than most when it comes to shifting the balance within the financial services industry is Bank of America, and it wins the award for North America’s best bank for sustainable finance.
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Croatia’s entry into the euro in January 2023 was a landmark event for the country’s banking sector, which is dominated by banks from elsewhere in the European Union.
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After depositors fled the wreckage of the US regional banks in 2023 and customers started jumping overboard from a sinking Credit Suisse, even more banks could have been dragged into a systemic crisis. But UBS, rebuilt after the global financial crisis as a strong, sustainable and well-managed institution, responded to the rescue call from a fellow G-Sib. It rescued Switzerland as a financial centre, stopped the panic from spreading and struck a good deal for its own shareholders. Credit Suisse was not a gift. The integration will be tough. But UBS has got off to a good start and could soon relaunch its own growth story.
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Western Europe is the most competitive region in the world for investment banking. The big five US firms, with the ambition and capability to claim global leadership, all lead transactions for the continent’s biggest companies as well as for US and Asian multinationals acquiring and raising capital in Europe.
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Transaction banking clients faced many challenges in 2023, mostly as a result of the rapidly shifting interest rate environment. That made it vital to have a banking partner that could supply reliable advice on liquidity management.
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For the second year in a row, Standard Bank walks away with the award for the best bank in Africa. And for good reason.
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Focusing on its core strengths has helped Deutsche Bank serve corporate clients amid intense geopolitical, technological and environmental challenges.
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In tough markets, changes in banks’ market share can be particularly telling. Mergers and acquisitions had another down year in 2023, with total volume falling to $3.13 trillion, from $4.3 trillion in 2022, when rates first started rising, and $5.7 trillion in the post-Covid boom of 2021.
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Some capital markets franchises make their name for sheer volume, topping the deal rankings by simply being everywhere. Others take a different tack, picking spots where they know they excel and then doing so. For yet again being on some of the most challenging and intellectually demanding deals in the review period, Morgan Stanley is North America’s best bank for financing.
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In a tumultuous year for China’s investment banks, marked by a muted IPO market and stricter regulatory oversight, CICC has emerged as the undisputed leader. While prominent Chinese investment banks, such as Citic, have faced investigation case filings from the regulator, CICC has solidified its position at the forefront of the industry, particularly in the domestic M&A space.
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Ecobank Sierra Leone recorded double-digit growth in its commercial banking operations last year, with gross loans to business customers up by 45% to $11.8 million. Customer deposits were up by 3%, reaching $25.7 million.
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Andrea Orcel’s long-awaited debut as a bank chief executive has won over the markets, largely thanks to capital returns. But his plans for UniCredit go far beyond balance-sheet management and costs. He now sees a chance to demonstrate growth.
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With volumes in the capital markets subdued in 2023, there was increased client interest in private markets and M&A transactions. BofA Securities – led by Augusto Urmeneta, president of Bank of America for Latin America and head of Latin America global corporate and investment banking – embraced this challenge and helped clients tap alternative sources of liquidity. M&A was an important strategic option for many companies and BofA’s deal list featured 26 clients in five countries with both cross-border and domestic transactions, which accounted for a 9.5% market share in terms of fee revenues ($52.2 million).
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HSBC wins the award for western Europe’s best bank for transaction services thanks to the delivery of an impressive range of services to corporate treasurers that the bank has developed over years of heavy investment.
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New Zealand’s high interest rate cycle has significantly impacted borrowing demand and funding costs, marking the end of an era of record profits for banks. Despite these challenges, ASB Bank, owned by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, has demonstrated resilience during the awards period and is New Zealand’s best bank.
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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.
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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.
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Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has solidified its standing as Australia’s best bank, driven not only by robust financial performance but also by its disciplined approach to margin management. Under the stewardship of chief executive Matt Comyn, the bank has strategically opted not to compete for less profitable mortgage customers to focus on delivering sustainable returns.
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Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB) had another good year in 2023 and is again the best bank in the country for the review period.
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When Scotiabank’s long-serving chief executive Brian Porter stepped down at the end of January 2023, after 10 years at the helm and more than 40 years at the bank, he left an institution that was in better shape than he found it, but one that still had much to do.
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French banks have not had the net interest margin bonanza that higher interest rates have offered many southern European banks recently. In fact, some French banks saw profit decreases in their domestic retail divisions last year, while areas like markets and vehicle leasing have been less of a support to group profit compared to the immediate post-pandemic period.
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Despite 2023 not being a year for the record books in investment banking and capital markets, clients still required careful and thoughtful advice even when they were not doing landmark deals. For its consistency and all-round excellence, JPMorgan takes the US award for best investment bank.
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The M&A advisory rankings for 2023 tell a familiar story in western Europe. JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs rank top both by revenue and by deal value. But Rothschild & Co advised on almost twice as many transactions as either of the bulge bracket pair and it maintained its third place in the revenue league table ahead even of Morgan Stanley.
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For many banks, sustainable finance is about more than just finance, it is about the quality of advice they provide and what they themselves are doing to be more sustainable.
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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.
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Under the leadership of president Khairussaleh Ramli, Maybank has exceeded the broader industry performance and achieved several milestones this year, for which it receives the award for Malaysia’s best bank. With total assets exceeding RM1 trillion ($212 billion) and a remarkable 17.5% rise in net profit to RM9.35 billion in 2023, the bank has grown while delivering record dividend payouts. Profit before tax was up 5.6% and return on equity rose to 10.8% from 9.6% in the previous year.
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Despite a local economic slowdown, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s banking sector remained healthy in 2023 for growth, profits and asset quality. It is a market that UniCredit Bank Mostar and Raiffeisen Bank dominate in terms of market share, and this year UniCredit – led locally by chief executive Amina Mahmutović – retains the award for the country’s best bank.
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To be the best investment bank in the fastest growing continent you can’t just be here or there, you must be everywhere.
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With economic growth softening in Trinidad and Tobago – this year GDP is expected to come in at 2.2% compared to 2.5% in 2023 – Scotiabank continues to outperform other banks in the local market. Led by country manager Gayle Pazos, Scotiabank’s focus on digital transformation saw improvements in its platform relating to accessibility upgrades and security enhancements. The significant investment from the bank in this area over the past three years is helping to deliver efficiency and, in turn, stronger financial results.
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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.
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Access Bank Gambia impressed this year with its strong financial results, effective support for small and medium-sized enterprises and important philanthropic work.
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The definition of excellence in these Euromoney awards is multifaceted. Sometimes the best bank is the one that has innovated and changed the market, sometimes the momentum in the market deserves recognition and at other times the player that dominates in terms of scale and profitability is the winner. It’s not often all three, but in Brazil, Nubank has revolutionized the retail banking market while enjoying unprecedented growth that has begun to feed – thanks to its highly efficient operating model – into operational leverage that is driving market-leading profitability.
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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.
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As balance sheet pressures have intensified, Morgan Stanley has been at the forefront of a changing financial sector landscape.
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Singapore’s big lenders tend to dominate banking for small and medium-sized enterprises in Asia, and this year is no exception, with UOB beating its domestic rivals to this award.
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Some analysts were quick to call it the deal of the century. The first takeover of a global systemically important bank that repeated management errors and regulatory failure had brought to the brink of collapse was a rescue by its domestic rival. It was a humiliation for Switzerland that, with customers pulling their money in vast quantities over several months, Credit Suisse was left to carry on to the very brink of insolvency.
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There is so much to like about Sampath Bank’s approach to corporate responsibility. The Sri Lankan bank spent Rs91.3 million ($300,000) on all corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in 2023. That is small compared to the sums lavished on the space by bigger lenders. Yet the bank, which allocates 1% of net profit to projects that further environmental and social sustainability, manages to squeeze so much out of what it has to give.
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There are many reasons why Citi wins this year’s award for Asia’s best digital bank. Above all, the bank has no peer when it comes to investing year after year in cutting-edge digital solutions that benefit all of its clients.
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A strong financial performance together with a series of new initiatives, including in environmental, social and governance, make Standard Bank Euromoney’s best bank in South Africa this year.
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For its mix of sustainable finance structuring expertise and innovation in retail banking, ING wins the award this year.
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As India’s second-largest private bank, ICICI Bank has once again demonstrated its ability to outperform its peers. While its formidable competitor, HDFC Bank, has a significant acquisition to digest, ICICI Bank has seized the opportunity to catch up in valuation and surpass market expectations, making it India’s best bank this year.
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Led by its head of wealth and investment Jacques Els, Standard Bank Wealth & Investment is a private-banking powerhouse in Africa.
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All banks invest heavily in their digital products and services, but the return on that investment can vary widely.
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Nicaragua’s economy suffered a rapid deceleration from the 10% growth rate it experienced in the immediate post-pandemic reopening. Political and economic volatility impacted the financial system and there was distinct evidence of a risk-off attitude to loan growth from most of the country’s main banks.
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NMB Bank is Euromoney’s best bank in Tanzania for 2024. Total assets grew by 19%, from $3.95 billion at the end of 2022 to $4.7 billion at the end of 2023. Net profit was also up 26% at $208.6 million. Both increases are the product of loan growth of 28% and a rise in the number of customer accounts – the bank opened 1.2 million new accounts in 2023 alone.
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For Danske Bank, Denmark’s best bank, 2023 was a year of rehabilitation after a difficult period that culminated in the settlement in late 2022 of historic money laundering issues. With a strong financial performance that saw profits nearly double even after adjusting for the regulatory charges in 2022, the bank has come roaring back to life.
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BDO Unibank, the Philippines’ largest bank, turned in an exceptional financial performance in 2023, cementing its position as the country’s best bank.
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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.
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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.
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Global IME Bank’s merger with the Bank of Kathmandu last year proved to be a game changer, catapulting the combined entity to the top of Nepal’s banking sector. This merger is considered an effective step in consolidating the country’s financial resources and in recognition of this, it receives the awards for Nepal’s best bank.
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After years of political upheaval and economic crisis, Sri Lanka showed signs of stabilization in the second half of 2023. Despite the challenging landscape, Hatton National Bank (HNB) achieved record growth in the review period and cemented its position as Sri Lanka’s best bank.
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For many US regional banks, the priority in the first part of 2023 was simply survival. But for the very best, ambitions went much further than that. For its excellent financial performance, the product of wise decisions made years ago and the continued execution of an impressive strategy, Fifth Third is the US's best super-regional bank.
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In 2023, Korean banks faced a perfect storm, grappling with regulatory pressure to lower interest margins while facing intense profitability hurdles. In addition, the country’s largest banks found themselves embroiled in a scandal around the mis-selling of equity-linked securities that had resulted in substantial losses for consumers.
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The French bank has made steady progress in this business over the last decade and last year was a strong period of new mandates and client expansion.
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Like in the neighbouring Czech Republic, foreign groups own all five of Slovakia’s top five banks. And like in the Czech Republic and elsewhere, higher interest rates have brought higher profits – and new taxes on banks, in Slovakia’s case following the formation of a new government in October last year.
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The bank says it is succeeding with Open Account Automation, the first module of a long-term initiative to digitize trade finance through new platform CashPro Supply Chain Solutions.
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Attijariwafa Bank remains the bank to beat in Morocco. In a year that saw profits grow 20% to Dh13.8 billion ($1.4 billion), it has focused its efforts on promoting private investment in the country.
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Public-sector clients had to tackle rising rates and geopolitical uncertainty in 2023, while undergoing fundamental restructuring in their sector. HSBC was instrumental in guiding them through the uncertainty.
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Presenting annual earnings in early February 2024, Frank Vang-Jensen had good reason to be delighted with the 2023 performance of the bank he leads as chief executive. After another year in which Nordea strengthened its profile in all four of its main markets, including performing strongly in its home country, the bank again wins the award for Finland’s best bank.
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UOB retains the title of Singapore’s best bank, bolstered by resilient financial performance and a strengthened network across southeast Asia. Under the leadership of chief executive Wee Ee Cheong, the bank devised a three-year plan in 2023 to become the foremost bank in southeast Asia, and it is well on its way to delivering on that aim.
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In 2023, ABA Bank, Cambodia’s largest commercial bank, achieved significant growth across all key metrics, solidifying its position as a leader in the country’s banking sector and winning it the award for the country’s best bank. Under the leadership of chief executive Askhat Azhikhanov, the bank’s net profit increased by 5% to $276.5 million in 2023, securing its status as the most profitable commercial bank in Cambodia for the third consecutive year.
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Bank Mandiri, Indonesia’s largest bank by assets, achieved a record net profit of $3.6 billion in 2023, an impressive 34% year on year rise – the highest in the industry and significantly outpacing the other four tier-one banks. Led by president director Darmawan Junaidi, it retains the award for Indonesia’s best bank.
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The winds of change are coming to the Mexican banking system. Nubank’s arrival and its 15% interest-paying deposit account are certain to bring new competitive challenges to the established banks. As the biggest and best bank in the country, BBVA theoretically has the most to lose, but its continued excellence across banking segments means that it is the best prepared for any disruption to come.
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There is a new force in small and medium-sized enterprise banking in Latin America and that is BTG Pactual. The bank is renowned for forensically analyzing new segments before entering and then aggressively pursuing what it has identified as specific opportunities and market innovations.
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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.
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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.
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The Ecuadorian economy slowed significantly in 2023 and was largely driven by public-sector spending. The impact of new president Daniel Noboa, who won the November 2023 election, has yet to be seen, but liquidity remains a persistent issue for the dollarized economy. Seeking scale seems to be the best defence against the country’s regular dollar shortages and in this environment the large banks thrive.
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Banking small and medium-sized companies across central and eastern Europe has become intensely competitive for the regional banks. Even amid the anaemic economic growth of last year, competition to grow the SME client base remained high as banks sought to expand their market share and boost assets.
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Afghanistan International Bank (AIB) has once again proven its resilience and adaptability in the midst of severe economic challenges, demonstrating its crucial role as a financial lifeline connecting the country with the world.
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A regional SME champion shows how to operate on the world stage.
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Barclays wins the award as the UK’s best investment bank. Even though some investors had to wait for the bank’s investor day in February 2024 to hear it once again reaffirm its commitment to the investment bank, staff in the UK had no doubt of this.
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Awash Bank greatly expanded its digital solutions last year, achieving high levels of engagement across mobile and internet banking.
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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.
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Prime minister Donald Tusk’s defeat of the former ruling party PiS in elections last October brought hope for a less strained relationship between Poland and the EU. It also brought hope for more favourable policies towards banks, after the PiS government’s mortgage holidays and bank taxes.
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Brazil’s Nubank is the momentum story in global banking. In 2023, the bank added 19 million clients (to a total of 93.9 million), and it now can claim to bank 53% of the adult population of Brazil. It is also now seeing a positive operating leverage effect from the growth in its client base. In the fourth quarter of 2023, it recorded revenue of $2.4 billion (Nubank is listed on the NYSE and all its earnings are reported in dollars), which was up 57% on an annual basis. Net income jumped 489% to $360.9 million, with a return on equity of 23%.
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Crédit Agricole CIB demonstrated its global capabilities and expertise in sustainability for Hong Kong clients last year, structuring and executing several transactional firsts as well as supporting the growth and development of the broader market.
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In a year marked by historic lending growth in China, state-owned banks have taken the lead, defying the traditional dominance of smaller banks in driving loan expansion. Among these state-owned giants, Bank of China (BoC) has emerged as a standout performer, securing its position as China’s best bank this year.
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The bank's ability to offer a full set of services almost everywhere around the globe sets it apart from the competition.
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Barclays has integrated sustainability across its operations and financing activities, significantly reducing emissions and enhancing its commitment to green investment.
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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.
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Panama had a solid 2023, with economic growth of 5%, but that belies the significant challenges that the country’s new president, José Raúl Mulino, will face. The closure of the country’s copper mine will add to the fiscal pressures that the increasing deficits from the country’s social pension system are creating. A drought has also affected the Panama Canal, a major revenue source for the government, and the economic outlook will likely get tougher from here.
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The Guatemalan economy had a turbulent time in 2023. The election of Bernardo Arevalo in early 2024 should improve relations with the US and potentially lift the country’s economic outlook, but the social challenges that have plagued Guatemala through times of economic expansion and contraction alike are resistant to superficial measures.
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Raiffeisen Bank Kosovo is the country’s best bank after a year in which it introduced of a series of new and enhanced products across its banking businesses, materially grew its client base and generated a record net profit.
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Scotiabank has demonstrated remarkable consistency amid a very volatile economic period, reflecting the management team’s focus on initiatives to improve the productivity and efficiency of the bank.
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Under the leadership of chief executive Karl Stumke, Bank of Maldives, the country’s best bank, has delivered on its strategic priorities in 2023, resulting in a strong financial performance and substantial customer acquisition.
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Baiduri Bank is again Brunei’s best bank, not just because of its impressive financial performance but also for its dedication to digital transformation.
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Standard Chartered wins the award this year for making several key enhancements to its digital banking platform, supporting strong growth in customer sales and engagement.
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The Palestinian economy was already slowing ahead of the October 7 attacks, but the situation has deteriorated sharply since then. Growth had fallen by 3% year on year across the territories in the first half of the year and by 4.4% in Gaza itself.
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For Israel’s banks, 2023 was a story of two distinct parts: the months prior to the Hamas attacks on October 7; and those after.
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Issuer: Air Lease Corporation Sukuk
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Name of borrower: Yiti Sustainable City
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Name of borrower: Saudi Real Estate Refinance Company
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Name of borrower: Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB)
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Name of borrower: Kuwait Projects Company
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ADIB Egypt wins Egypt's best international Islamic bank thanks to its strong financial performance and launch of impactful initiatives and products.
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Issuer: Egyptian Financial Company for Sovereign Taskeek
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Bank ABC Islamic wins Bahrain's most transformed Islamic bank in recognition of its three-year growth strategy.
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Kuwait Finance House (KFH) is Kuwait's best Islamic bank thanks to its strong financial performance and the implementation of several innovative solutions.
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Banque Misr has seen a strong performance in its Shariah-compliant loan book and has been instrumental in several key Islamic finance transactions.
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Emirates Islamic Bank wins the UAE's most innovative Islamic bank award this year. It launched a range of innovative products and services across several business segments.
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Name of borrower: Ziraat Katılım
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HSBC Saudi Arabia is named Saudi Arabia's best international Islamic bank this year, reflecting its strong performance across capital markets, where it took leading roles in some of the most important regional transactions.
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Name of borrower: Acwa Power
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Citi Islamic Investment Bank has had a good year in Bahrain and impressed with its debt capital markets work during the awards period.
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Al Salam Bank has performed well across several financial metrics during the awards period, having launched new products, including first-to-market technology.
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Standard Chartered Saadiq wins best international Islamic bank in the UAE this year after strong growth and an improvement in its sustainable product offering.
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Al Rajhi Bank is named Saudi Arabia's best Islamic bank following a strong performance across several market segments.
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Name of borrower: Republic of Turkey
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Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank has made great improvements to its digital offering and environmental, social and governance engagement this year, and is UAE's best Islamic bank as a result.
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Across retail, corporate, business, private banking and wealth management, the UAE’s Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank has demonstrated growth, development and regional leadership in the service it offers clients, making it Euromoney’s best Islamic bank in the Middle East.
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Name of borrower: Sanvira Carbon
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Qatar Islamic Bank has launched several new digital services which have contributed to an improvement in user engagement. It is Qatar's best Islamic bank this year.
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Bank Muscat wins the award for the best Islamic bank in Oman after the roll out of several initiatives that contributed to growth over the review period.
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Borrower: Multiple special purpose vehicles
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Issuer: Aldar Investment Properties Sukuk Limited
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Jordan Islamic Bank wins best domestic Islamic bank in Jordan following a solid financial performance over the review period.
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Allied Bank Limited has made some great enhancements to its product offering and has seen a corresponding improvement in financial performance.
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Issuer: Khazanah Global Sukuk
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Amana Bank is named the best Islamic bank in Sri Lanka following a good year and new product innovation.
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Name of borrower: Johor Corporation
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HSBC Amanah has reinforced its position as the leading Islamic banking institution in Malaysia this year with robust financial performance and innovative product launches. The bank secures is name as the best international Islamic bank in the country as a result.
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In 2023, Bank BTN, passed a number of milestones, from supporting sustainable housing to launching environmental, social and governance initiatives, and is the best Islamic bank in Indonesia this year.
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Name of borrower: AET Singapore Holdings
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Name of borrower: Enertech Holding Company
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Name of borrower: Pakistan Mobile Communications
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Standard Chartered Saadiq saw new product launches, technological innovation and strong financial results during the awards period, and is Pakistan's best international Islamic bank this year.
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Name of borrower: PT Permodalan Nasional Madani
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Maybank Islamic wins best domestic Islamic bank in Malaysia following a period marked by strong financial results, impactful environmental, social and governance initiatives and landmark transactions.
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Issuer: RP Hydro (Kelantan) Sdn Bhd
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Issuer: Power Holding Limited
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Issuer: Perusahaan Penerbit SBSN Indonesia III
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Name of borrower: Islamic Republic of Pakistan
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CIMB Niaga Syariah is Indonesia’s best international Islamic bank, having made good progress in digital and sustainability this year.
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Maybank Islamic has made good progress across its Malaysia and Indonesia operations and is Asia’s best Islamic bank this year.
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Standard Chartered Saadiq has made progress in its commitment to innovation, financial inclusivity and sustainable development, and wins Bangladesh’s best international Islamic bank category this year.
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Name of borrower: KPJ Healthcare
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Issuer: Lagos State Infrastructure Sukuk SPV
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Standard Bank Shari'ah Banking has focused on product innovation during the awards period and has seen impressive growth across its African operations.
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Standard Bank Shari'ah Banking has been named the best Islamic bank in South Africa following a busy period in the capital markets, the launch of several market-first solutions and impactful community support work.
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Issuer: FGN Roads Sukuk Company 1
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Islamic banks have been particularly industrious in their efforts to integrate an environmental, social and governance focus into their core strategy and operations.
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Innovation is occurring at a rapid pace in Islamic finance, spurring growth and development in this global market. Investment management firms need to continually evolve their product and service offering to stay ahead of the competition and attract new capital.
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Mashreq Al Islami continues to demonstrate its digital leadership in Islamic banking through the breadth and quality of the services and products it provides. It is Euromoney’s best Islamic digital bank this year.
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There are only a few truly global banking institutions that provide a full range of sophisticated shariah-compliant advice, products and services. HSBC leads this select group, making it Euromoney’s best international Islamic bank for 2024.
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New York-headquartered Wafra is Euromoney’s best Islamic fund manager this year in recognition of its investment expertise, range of dedicated shariah-compliant strategies and fund performance.
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Despite global sukuk issuance falling to its lowest dollar-denominated value in three years, there were still plenty of debuts, innovations and ground-breaking developments last year, and Standard Chartered Saadiq was front and centre of that, making it Euromoney’s best sukuk house for 2024.
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CIMB Investment Bank is Euromoney’s best Islamic project finance house this year following its work on a range of transactions throughout the year, and for one in particular that stood out for its innovation and national importance.
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InterVest Capital Partners has been named Euromoney’s best Islamic leasing house this year in recognition of its investment and leasing experience, sector diversity in specialty finance and strong financial performance.
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It takes structuring expertise, sophistication and a good read of markets to engineer shariah-compliant structured products that perform, especially amid an uncertain and volatile global macroeconomic and markets backdrop.
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Sohar International Bank is Euromoney’s best bank in Oman this year. The landmark merger with HSBC Bank Oman in 2023 has resulted in substantial growth in assets, market share, market presence and workforce.
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Commercial International Bank (CIB) has maintained its position as the bank to beat in Egypt during the review period.
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Al Rajhi Bank’s Bank of the Future strategy marked its final year in 2023, the end of a series of growth targets set when chief executive Waleed Al-Mogbel took the helm.
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Arab Bank, under the leadership of chief executive Randa Sadik, had another good year in Jordan despite acute geopolitical risks, surging inflation and unprecedented increases in interest rates.
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Al Salam Bank enjoyed strong financial performance last year, while expanding its geographic footprint and innovating in the digital space. It is Euromoney’s best bank in Bahrain 2024.
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Qatar National Bank (QNB)’s scale and banking power in the country seem unassailable across all banking businesses. It dominates activity, reporting more assets ($338 billion), loans ($234 billion), deposits ($235 billion) and net profit at the end of last year than that generated in each segment by all four of the other largest banks combined.
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Kuwait Finance House (KFH) is Euromoney’s best bank in the country this year, following a record-setting financial performance and the consolidation of Ahli United Bank Kuwait.
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FAB was the clear winner of Euromoney’s best bank award in the UAE this year following a strong financial performance, improvements in environmental, social and governance and sustainable finance, and advancements in technology.
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If you visit the website of National Bank of Bahrain (NBB), it doesn’t take long to recognise that it takes corporate responsibility seriously.
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The provision of transaction services in the Middle East has become one of the most fiercely competitive parts of the market, largely concentrated around banks’ ability to support local and regional champions as well as blue-chip multinationals operating in the region.
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In the face of increasing competition among regional and global banks, HSBC has again demonstrated its financing strength and expertise in the Middle East across the breadth of markets, sectors and geographies it is a leader in.
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Emirates NBD Private Banking has a proven track record across wealth management in the Middle East. The Dubai-based firm scooped several wins at this year’s Euromoney private banking awards across global wealth management.
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As more banks in the Middle East invest in their digital transformations, the largest banks in the region are competing to develop new digital products and services.
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It was another stellar year for First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), under the continued leadership of group chief executive Hana Al Rostamani.
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Last year was an important one for sustainable finance in the Middle East. Dubai hosted the COP28 conference, following on from Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt in 2022. This has well and truly put the spotlight on sustainable finance for banks, corporates and sovereigns in the region.
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If there were two areas for any investment bank’s Middle East advisory team to specialise in and prove all-round excellence in last year, they were the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and outbound transactions. JPMorgan excelled on both counts.
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HSBC dominated the region’s debt capital markets across the awards period, completing 52 DCM transactions worth a total of $10.3 billion, according to data from Dealogic. In equity capital markets, the London-headquartered lender came second, completing seven deals worth $2 billion. It also ranked in initial stock offerings, completing six IPOs worth $1.38 billion in total.
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Emirates NBD has successfully exported its small and medium-sized business banking operations from the UAE to its other core markets of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, creating a regional SME banking champion.
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Aditya Birla Finance Limited-Wealth wins this award for the quality and range of its investment research.
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BDO Private Bank wins the award as the Philippines’ best domestic private bank for the quality and range of expertise and services it provides to high net-worth individuals, families and entrepreneurs.
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For its impressive commitment to this issue in the country, DBS wins the award for Taiwan’s best for sustainability.
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DBS wins the award for Taiwan’s best international private bank in recognition of the quality of its services and its leading market position in the country.
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Julius Baer wins this award for the investment the firm is making in this core Asian market, as well as the global expertise it offers Indian clients.
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UOB Private Bank wins the award as the only foreign private bank operating onshore in Malaysia.
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UOB Private Bank wins this award for its commitment to and investment in supporting next generation clients.
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DBS wins the award for Singapore’s best domestic private bank for the second consecutive year in recognition of its regional expertise, as well as the strength and sophistication of its wealth management offering.
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DBS wins the award for its strength and innovative leadership in serving family office clients in Singapore.
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DBS wins the award for its expertise in succession planning.
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DBS wins this award for the strength and sophistication of its digital solutions.
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DBS wins this award for best international private bank in Hong Kong in recognition of the quality and breadth of its services and its distinctive regional expertise.
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Euromoney Private Banking Awards: Hong Kong’s best for family-office services: JPMorgan Private BankJPMorgan Private Bank wins the family office award thanks to the quality and range of products, services and advice it provides wealthy Asian families.
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Euromoney Private Banking Awards: Hong Kong’s best for philanthropic advisory: JPMorgan Private BankJPMorgan Private Bank wins this award in recognition of its expertise and global connectivity in philanthropic advisory and services.
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Julius Baer wins the award for Singapore’s best for high net-worth clients in recognition of the impressive range of expertise and capabilities it offers this key client segment.
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Euromoney Private Banking Awards: Singapore’s best international private bank: JPMorgan Private BankJPMorgan Private Bank wins the international private bank award for the power, range and expertise of its cross-business capabilities.
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EFG Bank wins the award for its differentiated private-banking offering.
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Deutsche Bank Private Bank is building a focus on the most challenging customer segment of all: ultra-high net-worth individuals and family offices.
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LGT Private Banking is the private bank of the Princely House of Liechtenstein. Founded in 1920, it operates according to the same values and convictions that have guided the building and managing of its owner’s family assets for almost 900 years, across 26 generations: thinking and acting entrepreneurially; a long-term focus; openness to new developments and technologies; and a disciplined approach to risk and resources.
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The banks in each market that have excelled across a range of core private banking activities during the past 12 months.
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JPMorgan has been making a strong push in private banking in Europe, the Middle East and Africa over the past three years, substantially growing its numbers of advisers and clients, opening offices from Athens and Brussels to Copenhagen and Manchester, while taking advantage of its big technology budget to invest in new capabilities.
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BNP Paribas Wealth Management operates across 17 countries, serving a client base of entrepreneurs, family offices and high net-worth individuals.
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Serving the next generation of wealthy individuals and family members is at the heart of everything Julius Baer does. The Swiss pure-play wealth manager is cognisant of the vast amount of wealth in the process of being handed from one set of family hands to the next; it sees this segment as a key vehicle for it to, in its words, “live out [its] purpose” and “create value beyond wealth”.
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BNP Paribas Wealth Management shows “a strong dedication to enhancing the client experience through digital means, innovation and research”, according to the judging panel for this year’s private banking awards.
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In its home market, Deutsche Bank has expanded its leadership with high net-worth (HNW) customers, as well as with the ultra-high net-worth (UHNW) clients that are becoming a core focus in Germany, Europe and cross the globe.
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Caixabank Private Banking wins the award for best domestic private bank in Spain this year having demonstrated strong performance and launched important enhancements in many sectors.
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BNP Paribas has been relentlessly fine-tuning its secondary equities business in Europe for more than a decade. While the primary focus has been on reaching an affordable offering for institutional investor customers of its markets business, clients of the wealth-management business are now also benefiting.
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Few manage to do discretionary portfolio management better than Julius Baer today. The largest pure-play private bank by assets under management has been busy during its latest strategic cycle, which runs for three years through 2025.
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Societe Generale Private Banking, the wealth-management arm of Societe Generale, is a worldwide private bank with a strong European base. It had €140 billion of assets under management at the end of September 2023.
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The wealth-management divisions of national-champion universal banks have won most of the regional private banking awards in Western Europe. But Lombard Odier offers a powerful reminder of the capabilities of a pure-play private bank, owned by its managing partners who follow a business model solely focused on managing their clients’ assets.
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BNP Paribas Wealth Management’s philanthropy solutions have been a noteworthy part of its wider positive impact offering since 2008. The firm aims to provide clients, free of charge, with proposals that fit each step of their philanthropic journey.
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BNP Paribas Wealth Management has been named Western Europe's best private bank for sustainability this year. One of the many factors supporting this decision is the banks’ ability to embed sustainability into all its product and services by prioritising portfolio assessment and the upskilling of its bankers.
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JPMorgan Private Bank has unveiled a host of new services in recent years, targeting key clients across North America, as well as world-wide.
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At the heart of Goldman Sachs’s approach to discretionary portfolio management is the belief that all the bank’s institutional clients ought to have access to the kind of expertise and strategies that historically might only have been accessible to the very biggest.
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UBS’s wealth-management business had already seen enviable performance over the 10 years since it set itself the ambition of being the world’s leading global wealth manager in 2012. But, with the acquisition of Credit Suisse, the last 12 months have seen it take another step forward.
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Most high net-worth (HNW) individuals in the US plan to pass on their wealth to their children, but according to Bank of America Private Bank, fewer than half are confident that the next generation will make responsible decisions with their inheritance.
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At a time when geopolitical and macroeconomic turmoil are more bewildering than ever, the need for the guiding hand of a thoughtful investment research and strategy operation is greater than ever for private-banking clients.
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Key to succession planning is having a team with that critical combination of technical expertise in the relevant fields of estate and trust planning, but also a history of advising the wealthiest families in approaches that can then be successfully deployed and tailored in the service of new clients who might have similar characteristics.
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If JPMorgan Private Bank has one objective, it is to provide to clients that magic combination of an institution with the power of a global financial leader and the intimacy of a private-banking relationship. It is led by Mary Callahan Erdoes.
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RBC’s global asset-management business underpins its wealth-management offering, and its already dominant position in the Canadian market is increasingly being complemented by a strong showing in the US, as well as other regions around the world.
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Once again, Morgan Stanley takes the award for best private bank for sustainability in North America this year. The bank shows consistent leadership in this space with its Investing with Impact platform that now boasts over 300 financial products and accounted for $69 billion in client assets, as of September 2023.
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The best private banking franchises today must do much more than simply preserve and grow wealth. They must also enable their clients to share that wealth to meet all manner of broader goals, whether traditionally philanthropic or through the more modern lens of social impact.
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The banks in each market that have excelled across a range of core private banking activities during the past 12 months.
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JPMorgan’s wealth management business headed into the coronavirus pandemic with considerable momentum in high and ultra-high net-worth clients. It had only recently founded 23 Wall, a team to advise the biggest and wealthiest families on how to think strategically about the whole panoply of their private assets – everything from companies and property to sports teams and art.
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The very best franchises serving family offices must get one thing right above all else: they must be able to deliver a customized offering that is sensitive to the particular needs of any client. The larger the institution, the more services it can deploy to do this, but the higher the risk of a cookie-cutter approach to clients, requiring them to adapt to the service provider rather than the other way around.
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Nowadays, wealthy investors are not only looking for further insights and analytical expertise to guide them through uncertain markets but also for the ability to integrate non-financial preferences into their decision-making.
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Sustainability principles are embedded across all the private banking products and services offered by Formue, the Nordics and Baltics’ best private bank for sustainability this year.
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The banks in each market that have excelled across a range of core private banking activities during the past 12 months.
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Amid strong competition between the region’s leading private lenders, Carnegie Private Banking is the judging panel’s choice for best private bank in the Nordics and Baltics this year. The bank has also been recognized in three other categories: family office services, investment research and ultra-high net-worth individuals.
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Formue is this year’s winner for best bank for discretionary portfolio management in the Nordics and Baltics. Key to its success was the lender’s transition from a manually processed portfolio construction to an industry-leading portfolio and advice digital solution: Advent Genesis.
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Carnegie Private Banking is this year’s winner for best bank for ultra-high net-worth individuals in the Nordics and Baltics.
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The award for the best international private bank in the Nordics and Baltics goes to JPMorgan Private Bank this year. Among other things, the US lender impressed the judging panel with the philanthropic commitments it has facilitated for clients in the region.
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For its mix of global capability with local expertise and philanthropic efforts, JPMorgan wins the award for Sweden’s best international private bank.
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DNB Private Banking has been named this year’s best bank for family-office services in the Nordics and Baltics.
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Carnegie Private Banking wins the Sweden’s best domestic private bank award for the second consecutive year for the growth, investment and development it has made across its private banking business.
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Lombard Odier takes home the award for Euromoney’s best pure play private bank in the Middle East this year. The Swiss firm has transformed its presence in the region over the last few years.
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Ultra-high net-worth can be the most challenging client segment to service for private banks. The investable assets these clients provide can come with challenging demands and complicated needs.
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Investment research is about more than producing reports and roundtables. It is about creating quality resources that clients trust and respect.
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BNP Paribas Wealth Management has been named Euromoney’s best international private bank in the Middle East for 2024.
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In a region where most private-sector commercial activity is undertaken by family businesses, succession planning and wealth transfer could not be more important.
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The family-office sector in the Middle East has become increasingly important in recent years, with more and more local and international family offices setting up in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
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Discretionary portfolio management is an important part of Lombard Odier’s offering worldwide, and this is reflected in its business in the Middle East.
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The banks in each market that have excelled across a range of core private banking activities during the past 12 months.
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Emirates NBD has been named Euromoney’s best private bank for digital solutions in the Middle East for a second year in a row.
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The challenges presented by the pandemic and broader geopolitical tensions have meant that the role of the chief investment office has become especially important to any private banking offering in the Middle East.
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Sustainable finance came under intense scrutiny across the Middle East when COP28 took place in Dubai last year.
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Emirates NBD Private Banking’s retail banking and wealth management division generated its highest-ever revenue and strongest loan growth during the awards period and the firm is named Euromoney’s best private bank in the Middle East this year.
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In Brazil – and indeed throughout Latin America – the family-office business is critical for private banks.
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With the growth in wealth in all regions – and particularly in Latin America, which has seen a soft commodities-boom generate large increases in the high net-worth segment in recent years – the key to serving these clients is efficiency.
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The banks in each market that have excelled across a range of core private banking activities during the past 12 months.
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In recent years, the private banking industry in Latin America has been undergoing rapid transformation, with lower real interest rates and digitalization fragmenting traditional brands. And senior bankers forming their own boutiques.
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Until recently Latin America’s best bank for sustainability in Euromoney’s private banking awards would not have been a domestic franchise. Environmental, social and governance considerations came relatively late to Latin America, and the first wave of ESG-labelled investment funds was an imported novelty from the international banks – particularly the Europeans.
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Santander Private Banking in Latin America enjoys certain natural advantages thanks to the bank’s geographical footprint and strategy. Overlaying the global bank’s strength within the region is dominance in Spain and Europe more broadly, as well as a presence in the US. This perfectly matches the domestic market for private banking in Latin America – the local presence is essential to serve these clients – while also offering access to the main markets that Latin Americans tend to think of first when seeking portfolio diversification.
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Santander Private Banking’s ultra-high net-worth segment is called Private Wealth and covers clients who have more than €20 million. The bank has been growing this segment in recent years and it now has more than 100 dedicated bankers and specialists in Latin America.
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Credicorp Capital’s investment in investment research is a differentiator for a local private bank. The regional coverage provides excellent breadth, but it is the depth in certain areas that provides its client base with different investment ideas.
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Credicorp Capital retains its award for being the best private bank for discretionary portfolio management in 2024.
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If necessity is the mother of innovation, then it is perhaps no surprise that Santander Private Banking’s digital platform – which spans all the main Latin American private-banking clients – was the one that impressed the judges the most.
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As the oldest private bank based in the southeast of Brazil – the traditional powerhouse of wealth in the country – Itaú Private Bank has an inbuilt advantage when it comes to managing the generational succession in private banking.
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BTG Pactual’s next-generation service proposition is closely – but not exclusively – correlated with its family-office activities, so it is no surprise that its strength in the latter translates into leadership in the former.
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OTP Private Banking is putting resources into sustainability and showing signs of progress in the area. At a group level, improved scores by several environmental, social and governance ratings agencies are testament to its improvements in the area recently. For example, it moved from a medium- to low-risk ranking by Sustainalytics.
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The banks in each market that have excelled across a range of core private banking activities during the past 12 months.
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OTP Private Banking’s approach to digital development and innovation is predicated on a regional approach, helping the firm benefit from its presence across central and eastern Europe.
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OTP Private Banking says it has recently embarked on an overhaul of its discretionary portfolio management services. This involves redefining the workflow to reflect topical industry themes, such as the focus on environmental, social and governance, as well as the implementation of what it describes as revolutionary new front-office software and a focus on increasing client alpha.
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Over the past decade, OTP Group has grown as a regional bank in central and eastern Europe – even as other international banks have begun to retreat from the region. Listed in Budapest since 1995, the group now covers 12 countries, counting 17 million customers. Although it is headquartered in Hungary, it also considers itself a market leader in Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Slovenia in terms of the overall banking market, including retail.
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UniCredit’s importance as a private bank in Central and Eastern Europe is particularly evident in its service offering for high net-worth individuals.
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Chief executive Andrea Orcel has made it clear that Central and Eastern Europe remains at the heart of UniCredit, not least through the purchase of Greek lender Alpha Bank’s Romanian operations last year.
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BPI Private Wealth wins the award for the Philippines’ best for the next generation based on its investment and commitment in educating of this key client segment.
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Noah Holdings is named best wealth manager for overseas asset management this year in recognition of its asset allocation performance in volatile markets.
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BNP Paribas Wealth Management has been named Asia’s best private bank for sustainability 2024 in recognition of the firm's comprehensive approach to environmental, social and governance integration and its commendable track record of financial performance.
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Noah Holdings wins the award for wealth management firm of the year.
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FortePremier wins this award in recognition of the quality and range of its private banking and lifestyle services in Kazakhstan.
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For the quality and breadth of service it provides to family clients, BPI Private Wealth wins the award for the Philippines’ best for family office services.
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Hefeng Family Office wins the award for China’s best for family office services.
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Harvest Fund Management is China’s best wealth manager for fund of funds this year, achieving growth in this segment against a challenging market backdrop.
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Noah Holdings’ continuous digital innovation is recognized by it being named the best wealth manager for digital solutions in China this year.
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Ambit Global Private Client wins this award for its impressive performance in discretionary fund management.
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Few things matter more to investors than clarity and foresight. JPMorgan Private Bank's investment strategy team has established itself as an essential navigator, steering clients away from market pitfalls and towards opportunity.
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Harvest Fund Management once again proved its resilience in the face of market turbulence last year and is named China’s best fund house in wealth management.
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This year, DBS has been named Asia’s best private bank for high-net-worth individuals, a testament to its innovative approach in this competitive wealth-management sector.
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CICC wins this award for the strength and range of wealth management products and services it provides across the wealth segments.
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CICC Wealth Management continued to grow rapidly despite the extremely challenging market of the past year.
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Julius Baer has a distinct position in Asia. As the region’s largest pure-play private bank, it is unwavering in its commitment to personalized service.
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BNP Paribas Wealth Management is named Asia’s best private bank for digital solutions in 2024. This recognition comes on the back of a year that saw good digital growth and the implementation of a client-centric digital transformation strategy.
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Citi Private Bank's chief investment office has adopted a distinctive strategy following the bank's transition to a more streamlined structure that involved shedding regional layers in Asia. This combines its global capabilities with in-depth local expertise.
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United Overseas Bank (UOB), a stalwart in Singapore's banking sector since 1935, now boasts a robust network of 500 branches and offices across 19 countries. UOB is not only a bank with a long history but is also dedicated to spearheading innovative initiatives for the next generation through dynamic and multifaceted programmes.
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Heritvest wins the award for best for wealth succession in China this year.
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While the wealthy have excelled in accumulating and managing their assets, many still struggle with the complexities of passing them on. The urgency of succession planning was underscored by an HSBC Trustee survey in 2023, which found that 85% of global families are actively preparing successors for their business empires. This aligns with forecasts that about $18.3 trillion will change hands among high net-worth families by 2030.
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Founded in 2015, Deyu Family Office was one of the first multi-family offices in China and this year it receives the award as the country’s best boutique wealth manager.
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Heritvest is an established leader in China’s wealth management market and this year receives the award for the country’s best wealth manager for high net-worth clients
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In a year that has seen Asia's financial institutions face mounting pressures from geopolitical headwinds, DBS retains its mantle as Asia’s best private bank 2024. This award comes in tandem with two other regional honours: best for family office services and best for high net-worth (HNW) individuals. Its managing director and group head is Joseph Poon.
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With Singapore's ascent to a prominent hub for family offices in Asia, DBS has made quick work of establishing itself as a leading player in the region.
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Union Bancaire Privée (UBP), one of Switzerland's most prestigious private banks, has charted a course of strategic growth in Asia throughout 2023.
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360 One Wealth wins this award for the all-round strength of its private banking and wealth management offering in India.
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Minmetals International Trust has adjusted its strategy to cope with the challenges of the turbulent Chinese wealth management market this year and receives the award for the best trust firm in wealth management.
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The banks in each market that have excelled across a range of core private banking activities during the past 12 months.
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Changxin Henghui Family Office demonstrated significant potential in China over the past 12 months, making it this year’s rising star in wealth management.
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Metrobank wins the award for the Philippines’ best for ultra-high net-worth clients based on the impressive quality of the services it provides to this key client segment.
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Julius Baer’s commitment to Asia has certainly paid off. Bolstered by a team of 1,600 professionals, including over 430 relationship managers, the bank has achieved a doubling of its assets under management in the region since 2016, establishing itself as the largest pure-play private bank in the region.
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Bank of East Asia wins the award for the range of environmental, social and governance-related investment products it offers clients.
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BNP Paribas Wealth Management has been named Asia’s best bank for discretionary portfolio management (DPM) this year in recognition of its adept navigation of market headwinds and steadfast focus on client-centric service.
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In an African context in which private family wealth is growing rapidly, Standard Bank Wealth and Investment regards itself as one of the few large regional institutions with a comprehensive family-office service. It sees itself as a pioneer in this area, and wants to maintain a preeminent position in the category as the importance of African family offices continues to grow.
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As part of one of South Africa’s biggest banking groups, FNB’s private wealth offering provides clients with advice across local and offshore portfolios to help them leverage their assets at every stage of their life.
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Seven years ago, Barclays’ then chief executive Jes Staley decided to gradually sell down its Johannesburg-listed African unit, including retail banks across the continent. But when Credit Suisse announced a strategic refresh in 2021 – including selling its ultra-high net-worth private client book in nine African markets – Barclays saw it as a chance to gain bulk in African private banking once again.
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This year’s winner for best bank for high net-worth (HNW) individuals in Africa, Standard Bank Wealth and Investment, is rewarded for delivering clever tailored solutions to its growing clientele across key African markets.
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Two key elements of Standard Bank Wealth and Investment’s offering stood out in this category. The first of these, My360, allows clients to visualise and control their financial assets. It offers them an aggregated view of their portfolio across asset classes, providing clients with a view of their net asset value in multiple currencies, and allowing them to delve deeper into different categories from a single dashboard.
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FNB is this year’s winner for Africa's best bank for discretionary portfolio management. Not only did the regional lender’s discretionary solutions deliver a strong performance compared with its peers, but the bank also continued to innovate to meet new client needs in 2023.
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FNB wins the award for Africa's best private bank for ultra-high net-worth this year. The pan-African lender’s distinctive offering for the super wealthy demonstrates its ability to serve these clients.
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Next-gen clients can be just as diverse as any other private-banking clients, with similar ranges of age, investment goals and overall desire to be involved in the family wealth.
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As Africa’s largest bank by assets, Standard Bank Wealth and Investment is well-placed to take advantage of the growth of the continent as a private-banking market. The firm is led by Jacques Els.
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FNB has put succession planning at the heart of its private wealth proposition, taking the view that all clients should have access to the service, regardless of income or balance-sheet value. It considers the needs not only of the existing client but also the aspirations of the next generation.
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Last year was marked by innovation and implementation for 2024’s winner of the award for Africa's best bank for philanthropic advisory: FNB.
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The banks in each market that have excelled across a range of core private banking activities during the past 12 months.
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Citi’s chief investment office is at the heart of Citi Private Bank. And at the heart of that is David Bailin, the US bank’s chief investment officer.
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“We take pride in being a trusted partner, not only in exclusive investment and financing solutions, but also in environmental, social and governance opportunities, legacy and estate planning, wealth planning, and philanthropy,” Deutsche Bank Private Bank declared in its pitch document for this award.
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Competition in the high net-worth category is fierce: every private bank targets HNW customers, with the aim of making as many as possible of them long-term customers.
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Deutsche Bank Private Bank is far from the only global wealth manager to have transformed its business model and its fortunes in recent years.
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“Philanthropy is in our DNA.” So says JPMorgan Private Bank, which for more than 160 years has served as a philanthropy adviser and investment manager to many of the world’s leading charitable institutions and philanthropists.
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India is a key market for Julius Baer. Onshore, it is the largest foreign private bank, with a history stretching back more than 30 years, catering to high and ultra-high net-worth customers.
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Goldman Sachs has been helping clients manage the tricky process of safely and seamlessly moving money from one generation to the next for, well, generations.
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At a group level, BNP Paribas Wealth Management is a perpetual leader in the ever-growing field of sustainability. In 2023, Euromoney called the Paris-based lender the world’s best bank for sustainable finance for the third year in a row. We cited its status as the poster child for providing sustainable banking at scale, and its big and bold shift away from fossil fuels.
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Amid the constant hum of activity in the private-banking world, it can be easy to forget the importance of discretionary portfolio management.
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JPMorgan Private Bank says that it has “always been intentional about engaging future generations”. People are transitory and money can be too, but it doesn’t have to be. Any family knows wealth can be lost as easily as it can be won, and consistently falling on the right side of that equation means engaging the next generation, and the one after that.
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Traditionally, the route to acquiring new clients was achieved via the expansion of an adviser’s personal network. This was cultivated by doing the rounds, attending events and conferences, and through referrals. Business was steadily attained, then systematically, over years and even generations, retained.
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Deutsche Bank Private Bank takes this award for the second year in a row. The German lender was founded more than 150 years ago with the express aim of supporting entrepreneurs in its home market and, later, beyond.
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Liechtenstein-based LGT Private Banking is a standout leader in family-office services for good reason. Anyone wealthy enough to have their own family office is looking for a blend of attributes from their main provider: ideas and innovation on the one hand; safety and stability on the other.
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JPMorgan Private Bank clients enjoy the best of both worlds: an intimate relationship with a US lender that is allied to the power of a genuinely global financial leader. It is led by Mary Callahan Erdoes.
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In 2023, Singapore attracted S$12.7 billion ($9.43 billion) in fixed asset investments, amid a challenging global environment, according to data from the country’s economic development board. The previous year it was even higher, at S$22.5 billion.
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Goldman Sachs has a 22-year track record of outperformance in creating, analysing and constantly reassessing wealth management portfolios. Key to this is its internal Investment Strategy Group’s (ISG) proprietary strategic asset-allocation data crunching, and the way its wealth advisers engage with the ISG team to provide tailored investment recommendations to ultra-high net-worth individuals, family offices and institutional investors.
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There was a big rise in the number of respondents to Euromoney’s Trade Finance Survey 2024 who received an increase in credit from their trade banks last year – 45.7%, up from 41.8% in 2023.
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More than 60% of respondents to Euromoney’s 2024 trade finance survey expect an increase in use of trade financing over the next three years.
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Some 50.6% of respondents to this year’s Euromoney Trade Finance Survey say the cost of credit from their trade banks has increased over the past 12 months, compared with 45.4% in 2023.
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Best Bank: Hana BankHana Bank wins this award for not only growing at a faster rate than its competitors but also for doing so in a way that doesn’t endanger its franchise in the long run.
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First Bank of Nigeria is the country's third-largest bank, accounting for 10.4% of banking system assets at the end of 2022. Despite tackling a sizeable legacy book of impaired lending, it has built a decent corporate banking business that, by the end of 2022, had an annual turnover of more than N5 billion ($6.4 million).
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OTP Bank recorded impressive growth in lending volumes during the awards period and has also advised on some landmark financings.
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ING Bank’s commitment to sustainable and responsible banking in Germany makes the best bank for environmental, social and governance in the country this year.
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Barclays has made visible progress across the board in environmental, social and governance, advising on large sustainability financings, enhancing its sustainable mortgages and offering more support to green startups.
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Ardshinbank is Armenia’s best bank for environmental, social and governance after demonstrating a commitment to sustainability with its carbon footprint-minimization strategies and green financing work.
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The banks in each market that have excelled across a range of core banking activities over the past 12 months.
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The banks in each market that have excelled across a range of core banking activities over the past 12 months.
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The banks in each market that have excelled across a range of core banking activities over the past 12 months.
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Lack of standardization is one of the main reasons why API adoption has been slow in certain markets.
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Liquidity concerns and the search for yield are encouraging corporates to expand their roster of cash management service providers.
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The big cash management banks are confident that offering a wider range of services will enable them to maintain their market strength.
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In a period marked by rapid technological evolution across its entire business, Bank ABC has made several digital enhancements to its corporate product offering. The bank has been named best corporate bank in Bahrain this year in recognition of these transformative efforts, alongside its involvement in a number of important regional transactions.
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SBM Bank has undertaken several structural and strategic initiatives to enhance its offering for small and medium-sized enterprises over the last year and is Mauritius’s best bank for SMEs as a result.
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Zenith Bank wins best bank for digital solutions in Nigeria following a period of robust growth across its digital channels.
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Rawbank is the Democratic Republic of the Congo's best bank for digital solutions this year – a challenge in a country where much of the population doesn't have access to the internet or mobile banking.
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FairXchange’s mission lies in its name. It aims to create an open and transparent marketplace for all participants. Its independence and trusted, decentralised network mean that it is strongly positioned to facilitate the fair exchange of FX liquidity data.
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Flexibility and parameterization are expected to become key differentiators for FX execution algos as the market continues to evolve. JPMorgan’s algo suite offers both in abundance.
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D&I is recognised and promoted as one of five core values at Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), the others being Client First, Collaboration, Accountability and Integrity.
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JPMorgan has expanded its footprint in the non-deliverable forwards (NDF) space, supporting pricing capabilities across a wide range of currencies including seven Latin American pairs (BRL, MXN, ARS, CLP, COP, PEN, UYU) as well as frontier-market currencies such as the Costa Rican colón, Dominican peso, and Guatemalan quetzal.
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360T offers market participants multiple methods of accessing and interacting with the FX market. Its electronic communication network (ECN), 360TGTX, provides access to streaming spot FX and non-deliverable forward liquidity.
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CobaltFX, a portfolio company of United Fintech, offers an innovative solution to a decades-long issue facing the FX industry around credit distribution. This is that the need to carve out credit limits among various venues reduces credit availability for counterparties and reduces trading volumes, while credit lines can prove costly for banks to maintain.
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Wells Fargo has worked to become a top-tier institutional FX provider by leveraging its robust corporate and commercial FX franchise. To accomplish this, it has been actively building its capabilities in the e-trading space.
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Deutsche Bank’s FX business continues to grow.
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Sacombank has pioneered digital transformation in Vietnam. This has facilitated strong growth in online FX activities, with the bank becoming one of the leading banks in this segment.
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Capitolis works with some of the largest global financial institutions and is constantly developing new trade optimization solutions for banks and buy-side firms. Its technology helps to unlock capital constraints and enables greater access to more diversified capital and investment opportunities.
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Volatile macroeconomic conditions have boosted demand for timely and accurate foreign exchange market data. Bloomberg has risen to this challenge, further cementing its reputation as a global leader in this field and creating an offering that is an integral part of the FX ecosystem.
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Tradepoint’s algorithmic platform, which is used by banks for voice desk, e-trading and white-labelled order management process (OMS) flow, has continued to grow in 2023. With the introduction of new algorithms specifically for electronic execution of OMS orders, Tradepoint – under chief executive Eric Adelman – has made it easy to align execution with the print tickets visible to OMS clients.
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Santander’s presence in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay means it is well positioned to support clients across Latin America.
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Deutsche Bank has maintained good market share across both forwards and swaps during a period of underlying currency volatility and short-term interest rate volatility.
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Jump Trading Group is a global, research-based proprietary trading firm. It has evolved from trading futures on the CME nearly 25 years ago to becoming one of the world’s leading market makers across asset classes.
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UBS's single-dealer platform, UBS Neo, has benefited from a full front-to-back transformation over the last four years, enabling the bank to offer clients access to consistent liquidity provisioning in foreign exchange across products and currency pairs.
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Euromoney Foreign Exchange Awards 2023: Global market leader – best FX market innovator: BNP ParibasThe evolution of ALiX is testimony to BNP Paribas’s commitment to innovation. Over the last four years this personal digital execution assistant has expanded to cover all available products in Cortex FX in one small widget that fits neatly in the corner of a client’s screen.
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SmartTrade Technologies has emerged as a leader in front-office FX technology development.
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Real-money clients are central to State Street’s franchise, so it makes sense that this is a client segment the bank has performed well in, according to Dale Haver, global head of foreign exchange sales. “We work with real-money clients as partners and are 100% focused on achieving better outcomes for them and their investors.
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In May 2022, CME Group completed a multi-year migration to combine two leading FX trading venues through a common technology and service offering to create a platform spanning futures and options, cash (over-the-counter) and cleared FX, providing access to price discovery, execution quality and transaction cost analysis for market participants including banks, hedge funds and asset managers.
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Euromoney Foreign Exchange Awards 2023: FX market leader best provider – best FX exchange: CME GroupCME Group operates the largest regulated marketplace for foreign exchange globally and is a leading primary venue for price discovery. The scale of the global offering, deep liquidity, transparency and choice of execution provides clients across geographies with efficient access to global markets.
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CLS settles over $6.5 trillion of payment instructions daily across 18 currencies, protecting more than 70 settlement members and over 35,000 third-party participants from FX settlement risk. It does this by simultaneously settling payments relating to FX trades using its payment-versus-payment (PvP) system.
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360T’s execution management system (EMS) helps buy-side firms optimise their FX workflows across the entire trade life cycle, leading to increased efficiency, reduced operational risks and a comprehensive audit trail while also streamlining execution.
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The release of its new pricing and analytics platform for FX swaps, Neo STIR Analytics, has transformed how UBS engages with clients trading in FX swaps.
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Euromoney Foreign Exchange Awards 2023: Best bank services – best FX bank for wealth management: UBSUBS is recognised in the FX industry as a leading liquidity provider with a presence in all key trading centres around the globe. It is also the largest global wealth manager, with an unrivalled global footprint when it comes to accessing private clients. This has given UBS a unique opportunity that it has successfully capitalised on.
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BNP Paribas leads from the front in its development of trading technology. Innovation is at the heart of the business, and the focus on technology and product rollouts has involved notable developments to its FX algo suite.
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360T provides a suite of technology solutions that enable corporate treasurers to enhance their FX trading operations and access liquidity from a wide range of providers from around the globe.
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Euromoney Foreign Exchange Awards 2023: Best bank services – best FX bank for research: State StreetMore than 80% of the world’s largest asset managers consume State Street research, as well as global sovereign wealth and pension funds and corporate treasury departments.
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BNP Paribas has continually enhanced its e-books in spots, forwards and swaps over the last 12 to 18 months, which has allowed the business to provide greater liquidity and more competitive prices, even during the height of volatility.
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Commerzbank has forged longstanding relationships and established bilateral credit lines with clients in frontier markets that few other banks support. This allows those clients access to international markets and competitive FX pricing that they would otherwise struggle to access.
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UBS is a powerhouse in the FX industry with a strong reputation for liquidity provision.
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UBS’s extended coverage across multiple time zones and consistent liquidity provision – even during challenging market conditions – has boosted its market share particularly in emerging-market options.
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This year, Tradefeedr launched its Algo Forecasting Suite, providing trading firms with independent analysis of the performance of trading algos from a wide number of sources that can forecast performance with the greatest accuracy.
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Singapore Exchange (SGX Group) has established a strong reputation as a leading FX exchange for the Asia-Pacific region. Good product innovation, together with regular feedback and meetings are valued by clients.
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UBS has invested and innovated in its liquidity offering for the last 20 years – the result is its strong reputation for quality and reliability, particularly during periods of market dislocation.
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Deutsche Bank’s spot market share has increased by 13% over the review period, driven by innovations in electronic pricing solutions, thought leadership and a dedicated global voice-trading team that is able to keep the liquidity tap running for clients in the face of macroeconomic challenges.
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Deutsche Bank’s investment in principal resting order (PRO) technology for spot FX trades has enabled clients to earn spread while trading with the bank. PRO also enables the bank to further increase its internalization rate and hence reduce market impact for the entire client franchise.
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State Street Global Markets (SSGM) is a leading provider of liquidity, financing, and research solutions. Through its GlobalLink business it provides a suite of award-winning electronic foreign exchange trading platforms.
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Societe Generale’s strong historical footprint in Central and Eastern Europe and Africa, together with its growing business in the Middle East, mean that the French bank has a combination of deep knowledge and competitive local presence in the CEEMEA region.
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Real-money clients recognise that their FX trading desks have evolved over the last few years to require a hybrid set of skills combining voice trading with data-driven technology solutions used to create automated trading models.
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The banks in each market that have excelled across a range of core banking activities over the past 12 months.
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Fabrix is as a vertically integrated real estate investment platform. It focuses on breathing new life into overlooked urban spaces by employing innovation in finance, tech and architecture. Perhaps most importantly, the company’s projects serve as a blueprint for sustainable development.
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Grit Real Estate Income Group is a pan-African real-estate company with a portfolio of assets across the region.
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Headquartered in Kuwait, United Real Estate Company operates through a number of operating subsidiaries and investment arms across the Middle East and North Africa region.
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Evora Global is a leading technology innovator in the sustainability real-asset investment industry. The business has a strong commitment to reducing energy, decarbonization and limiting physical climate risk by leveraging investment management, strategic advisory and technical engineering expertise.
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With $280 billion of real estate in 241 markets globally, Greystar’s commitment to the residential sector is phenomenal.
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Real-estate firm Hines celebrates 25 years in Brazil this year by adding to its already diverse portfolio focused on for-rent residential. A combination of high property prices in São Paulo and a younger generation with different priorities drove the decision to focus on this new business line.
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Operating in Asia Pacific, Eurasia, South America, the US and western Europe, global real estate investment, development and property company Hines manages nearly $96 billion in assets across residential, logistics, retail, office and mixed-use.
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Hines, the global real estate investment, development and property company, is active in Asia Pacific, Eurasia, South America, the US and Western Europe. It currently has 203 projects in progress worldwide, amounting to 91.8 million square feet. This is in addition to the nearly 1,000 projects that the firm has completed, which total nearly 300 million square feet.
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With offices in Poland, Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic, Skanska has a strong footprint in Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltics.
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Real estate has been particularly exposed to the slowdown in bank lending. Nevertheless, logistics remains a bright spot as retail sites continue to adapt and office oversupply persists.
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Global logistics firm Goodman Group owns a property portfolio that spans 14 countries, with $81 billion in total assets under management.
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Blackstone, the world’s largest alternatives asset manager, hit a new milestone in July when it reported in its second-quarter results that it had hit $1 trillion in assets under management. The firm’s net income rose to $601.3 million in the same quarter.
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Standard Bank Group (SBG), Africa’s largest bank, completed real estate transactions in many countries during the review period. It extended 20 new facilities totalling $249.05 million to both existing and new clients, and 13 refinancings totalling $408.8 million to existing clients.
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The banks in each market that have excelled across a range of core banking activities over the past 12 months.
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Link Real Estate Investment Trust demonstrated a commitment to growth and sustainability during the research period, while making intelligent, strategic deals in a challenging period for the sector.
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Emirates NBD is one of the leading financial services brands in the United Arab Emirates.
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Skanska focuses on the office, residential and hotels sector in the Nordic region. Key tenants in its developments include Telia, Sweco, Scandic Hotel and Borealis Group.
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JPMorgan’s global commercial real estate revenue grew to $806 million in the second quarter of 2023, from $642 million in the first quarter.
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With over €186 billion of assets under management (AuM), Axa IM raised around €15 billion of net new money in 2022, reflecting both its global offering and its ability to adapt to changing market conditions.
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With a presence in 19 markets globally, including Singapore, Hong Kong, China, India and the US as well as Europe, DBS delivered a record total income of S$16.5 billion ($12 billion) in 2022, a 20% increase in net profits to S$8.19 billion, return on equity of 15% and S$20.5 billion in sustainable financing loans.
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In 2022, BBVA partnered with US venture capital firm Fifth Wall to invest in technologies that address climate change in the real estate and construction industries, which together make up about 40% of global carbon emissions.
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Nordea Bank posted a larger than expected increase operating profit in the second quarter of 2023, to €1.72 billion, an increase of 26% year on year. Net interest income grew by 40% to €1.83 billion.
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Owned by New World Development (NWD), 11 Skies is a landmark 3.8 million square-foot gross floor area space and forms an integral part of Skycity, located between Hong Kong International Airport and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge.
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With operations in 66 countries, annual revenues of $4.5 billion and $98 billion of assets under management, Colliers is a diversified professional services and investment management company with deep expertise in the real estate sector.
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Sun Hung Kai Properties (SHKP) has been in Hong Kong since the 1980s. As one of the largest listed developers in the territory, its portfolio encompasses residential, office, retail and industrial spaces. Developments include iconic landmarks such as New Town Plaza in Sha Tin, Tsuen Wan Plaza in Tsuen Wan and New Century Plaza in Mong Kok.
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With its pan-European team of 45 people in seven countries in continental Europe, including Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands and the UK, BNP Paribas combines regional coverage with local expertise.
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Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) operates 74 shopping centres in 12 countries, 39 of which carry the Westfield brand. Its centres attract more than 900 million visitors annually and provide a platform for a range of retailers and brands.
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Big banks capable of competing with US players are part of Europe’s geostrategic interests, Deutsche Bank CEO tells audience at Euromoney dinner.
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It has been a tough year for Sri Lanka and for the banks operating in the country. Just as the island was exiting the worst of the Covid crisis, Sri Lankans were faced with political upheaval, an economy on the brink of collapse and shortages of everything from food to fuel.
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UOB’s transformative initiatives have earned it the title of Singapore’s best bank once more.
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HSBC remained formidable in the Hong Kong market over the past year and is now well positioned to reap the benefits of mainland China and Hong Kong’s post-Covid reopening.
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Prudence and caution was the mantra at CIMB Bank in the past year, and it served the bank and its chief executive Abdul Rahman Ahmad well. Revenues in 2022 rose 7.6% year on year, net profits before tax rose 38.1% and loans 5.6%. The bank also gained market share in mortgages, auto loans and credit cards.
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Baiduri Bank remains the standout bank in Brunei. This is not just down to its solid financial growth but also because of its commitment to digitalization, which has enhanced its capabilities in everything from data analytics to customer service.
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Capital market transactions might be few and far between in Tanzania, but when they do happen, Stanbic Bank Tanzania is often on the deal.
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Chinese banks have not had an easy ride in recent years. Faltering economic growth, muted domestic demand, tight Covid restrictions and growing scrutiny from regulators have forced them to hunker down and work as best as they can.
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Hana Bank wins this award for not only growing at a faster rate than its competitors but also for doing so in a way that doesn’t endanger its franchise in the long run.
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BNP Paribas is the world’s best bank and Morgan Stanley is the world’s best investment bank in Euromoney’s Awards for Excellence 2023. Christian Sewing, chief executive of Deutsche Bank, is named the banker of the year.
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It is not much fun being a banker in Argentina. But while it is pretty much universally tough for everyone, spare a thought for individuals like Juan Parma, HSBC’s chief executive Argentina and head of wealth and personal banking America. Because, while Parma’s peers in Argentine banks face many of the same challenges he does, at least for them the whole organization is still focused on the country. HSBC’s global leadership could be forgiven for skipping over the country in global strategy meetings.
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When financial analysts argue about whether economies of scale exist in cross border retail banking, they simply need to point to BAC International Bank (BAC). Led by Rodolfo Tabash, the bank is a big player in all the regional markets and, while these are small individually, together they total more than 50 million people.
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There is no better wealth manager in Latin America than Banco Santander. It won the award for best private bank in Latin America in Euromoney’s 2023 private banking awards.
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The retrenchment that Citi has made in the retail markets of central America has clearly not impacted its dominance of corporate and investment banking in the region. It wins the award for central America’s best investment bank again this year.
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If an organization in Latin America – corporate, sovereign or multilateral – wants to raise finance, Citi will invariably be part of the conversation. The bank’s financing team, led by Adrian Guzzoni, head of debt capital markets for Latin America, and Marcelo Millen, head of equity capital markets for Latin America, has shown that Citi’s ability to access local and international sources of funding and to present options spanning debt, loans and equity is a compelling proposition for finance departments across the region.
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BNP Paribas’s sustainability strategy for Latin America continues to mature, underpinning the bank’s strong position across the continent. The bank has made considerable efforts to deepen its focus on the three most important sustainability issues in Latin America: protecting biodiversity, promoting social development and decarbonizing hard-to-abate industries.
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Banco Pichincha has been developing several strategies to boost social inclusion and improve gender dynamics in Ecuador. The bank now has an impressive portfolio of projects that fit under the corporate responsibility banner.
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This year’s winner of the award for Latin America’s best digital bank, Davivienda, has not just adopted the digital channels of new startup rivals but has gone further. The bank has embraced digital banking, blockchain adaptation, artificial intelligence and the metaverse. The result is an intriguing and compelling mix of upgraded old-bank processes through digital infrastructure and completely new business opportunities.
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Latin America saw increased interest from many different types of acquirers in the past year as volatility elsewhere boosted the relative attractiveness of the region’s economic, legal and regulatory frameworks.
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The region's best banks, country by country
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BofA Securities retains the award for Latin America’s best investment bank. Last year, the team, led by Alexandre Bettamio, co-head of global investment banking, and Augusto Urmeneta, president for Latin America and head of Latin America Investment banking, claimed the award for a strong regional performance. This year BofA went even further and took the country awards for Colombia, Peru and Brazil. The latter is easily the most important investment banking market in the region.
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Banco Santander’s headquarters are in Europe, but the centre of gravity of its operations has been drifting westward to Latin America for many years now. Over the review period, the bank posted a solid year of progress among many of its Latin American markets, which comprise Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia and Peru.
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It is tempting to conclude that Citi’s impressive suite of treasury management services, for which it wins the award of Latin America’s best bank for transaction services, is the result of the bank knowing that it really needs to excel in this area. Given the growth strategy being pursued by chief executive Jane Fraser, which has seen the bank pull out of many retail banking markets to focus on corporate and investment banking, a market-leading transaction services offering is imperative.
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Despite the war in Ukraine, the past year has seen UniCredit operating with more of the purpose and commitment that international banks in central and eastern Europe too often lack.
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Last year, ING was the first bank in central and eastern Europe to stop providing dedicated finance to new upstream oil and gas fields, despite the fact that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatened energy supply on the continent. The Dutch lender remains the bank of choice for green or sustainability labelled deals in the region.
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Geopolitical tensions in the region have provided a welcome boost to Armenian banks’ profitability. Ardshinbank stood out during the awards period for making the most of this opportunity under the leadership of chairman of the management board Artak Ananyan. Profit before tax more than quadrupled in 2022, from Dram16 billion ($42 million) to Dram77 billion.
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Good perceptions of corporate social responsibility have become ever more important for banks in central and eastern Europe since the start of the war in Ukraine.
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The past year has seen Societe Generale play a crucial role in central and eastern Europe’s financing markets, led by Philippe Madar, head of corporate coverage for Europe. It is top of Dealogic’s mandated lead arranger rankings for regional syndicated loans in the awards period. Its market share in loans was almost twice as high as the next ranked bank, and it was also involved in some of the key bond deals during the awards period.
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Wealth management across central and eastern Europe is still in a state of flux, nearly 18 months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In that period, some lenders have pulled back from specific markets in the region; others have sought ways to cut costs by reducing their roster of senior private bankers.
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Under chief executive Hakan Binbasgil, Akbank demonstrated an innovative and proactive approach to small and medium-sized enterprise banking during the awards period, despite the difficult operating environment in its home market of Turkey.
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Even rivals recognize that OTP Bank has advanced strongly in digital banking recently, ensuring that its technology wins and retains customers in Hungary and across central and eastern Europe.
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Best Bank: OTP Bank Albania
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With the war in Ukraine adding to global volatility in capital markets, investment banking deal flow was weak in central and eastern Europe during 2022 and early 2023, especially for lower-rated names.
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Government clients and the reduced presence of international banks are typical features of finance in central and eastern Europe, and M&A is no exception. But the region is not beyond the reach of JPMorgan, central and eastern Europe’s best bank for advisory.
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UniCredit has long been regarded as a leader in corporate banking in central and eastern Europe. Transaction services continues to be a vital part of this regional franchise under Riccardo Madinelli, head of transactions and payments for central and eastern Europe.
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Football clubs undergoing a period of transition often talk of needing a transfer window or two to get where they need to be. More often than not, this doesn’t work. Better-run teams continue to make clear-minded decisions that keep them ahead of the pack. Catching up is always hard to do.
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It was ultra-competitive at the top of the M&A league tables in the review period. Goldman Sachs wins the award for Asia’s best bank for advisory this year because it was there on most of the big mergers and acquisitions. The bank advised on 76 deals in Asia Pacific in the 12 months to the end of March 2023, worth a total of $181.9 billion, according to Dealogic, for a 16.87% share of the market.
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Best Bank: Afghanistan International Bank
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Morgan Stanley is a powerhouse in financing. In Asia Pacific ex-China, the US bank helped to complete 42 equity capital markets deals – more than any other bank over the 12 months to the end of March 2023 – worth a total of $5.4 billion, according to Dealogic. And in debt capital markets, it completed 419 deals worth $46.2 billion.
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Citi takes everything it does seriously, but there is a special place in its collective consciousness for transaction services. This often-sprawling area of financial services, which chief executive Jane Fraser calls the crown jewel of the bank, is the beating heart of all Citi stands for.
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Singapore is Asia’s leading private banking hub – and at the heart of that story is DBS, a bank that has remade itself over the past decade and a half into one of the world’s best wealth managers.
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It is no surprise that HSBC is Asia’s best bank for sustainable finance for the sixth year in a row. Across its commercial, retail, global banking, markets and securities, capital markets, trade finance and risk management teams, the lender has created an extensive sustainability knowledge base that few of its rivals can match.
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Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) is a worthy winner of this award. At the heart of the bank’s philanthropic efforts is its BPI Foundation, which touches the lives of more than one million financially under-served Filipinos in 75 of the country’s 81 provinces.
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There is perhaps no other digital bank anywhere in the world like kakaobank. Many pure-play digital banks seem to have an in-built ceiling: at a specific point, organizational flaws appear, they cease adding new customers and start to appear more dysfunctional than disruptor.
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Afghanistan International Bank (AIB) remains the most stable and reliable institution in a country facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
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Morgan Stanley swallowed the market whole this year. There was precious little transaction activity that its investment bankers didn’t play a key role in.
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UOB is as committed as ever to serving small and medium-sized enterprises in its home base of Singapore – where it reckons it banks one of every two SMEs – as it is to clients in key markets across the region. From mid-sized corporates on the fringes of requiring capital markets services, to micro-enterprises, clients have come to rely on it for funding, financial advice and best-in-class banking services.
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Africa’s best bank for transaction services, Societe Generale operates in 19 countries in Africa, with 4.3 million clients, including 175,000 corporate clients. Its global transaction and payment services team is led by Alexandre Maymat.
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For the second year in a row, Equity Bank is Africa’s best bank for corporate responsibility. Under the leadership of group CEO James Mwangi, Equity Bank continues to create shared value for clients and citizens across its banking business, as well as its foundation, which dates back to 2008.
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In investment banking, Citi continues to benefit from the combination of a leading global network and an on the ground presence in Africa that is much bigger than most other international firms.
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In many African countries, Standard Bank is not as large as it would like to be. But it has a physical presence in 20 African countries and is already by far the biggest pan-African group in terms of its scale in the main sub-Saharan markets, the size of its balance sheet and its absolute profit.
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Standard Bank Wealth & Investment stands head and shoulders above the wealth management competition in Africa. The South African bank is a regional powerhouse in the sector, with private banking offices in 14 African markets, including Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana, as well as the whole of southern Africa.
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A combination of rising interest rates, depreciating currencies and poor credit ratings make it difficult for African economies to tap into global financial markets to fund their sustainable transition. At the same time, the impacts of climate change are becoming increasingly severe across the continent.
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Advantageous financial services reforms, abundant natural resources and a young population means there is plenty of potential for long-term economic growth in Angola. The banking sector is dominated by six large lenders, with very little competition from non-bank institutions.
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Evidence of an ability to leverage networks across Africa and beyond has helped Citi win the title of Africa’s best bank for advisory this year. While the firm has a strong franchise in South Africa, the rest of the continent is now becoming more important as a growth market. This award is therefore largely thanks to the team led by chairman of investment banking for Middle East and Africa, Miguel Azevedo, and Claude-Stephanie Ngningha, Citi’s head of investment banking in Africa outside South Africa and Egypt.
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Best Bank: Banco Angolano De InvestimentosBest Investment Bank: Standard Chartered Angola
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No African lender can match Ecobank Transnational’s reach. The Togo-based financial institution is a worthy winner of this year’s award for Africa’s best bank for small and medium-sized enterprises – the second year in a row it has received the title.
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Like most of South Africa’s big banks, Nedbank is on a mission to reform and re-engineer its IT system, using it to attract new business, cut costs and roll out new services.
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Compared with European banks that have built African retail operations, Deutsche Bank might not be as well-known as an Africa-focused lender. But it has long had important corporate and investment banking operations on the continent. It is one of the largest correspondent banks for African financial institutions and in the previous decade it helped many African sovereigns issue debut international bonds.
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Perhaps it is no surprise that when Euromoney sits down with Bank of America to discuss the bank’s pitch for this category there are five people in the meeting – and they are all women. This is a bank that has led from the front across all aspects of corporate social responsibility (CSR), including diversity and inclusion (D&I).
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The lasting impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on global energy markets has steered the sustainability conversation towards efficiency and practicality in western Europe. Beyond investing in low-carbon solutions to reduce the energy intensity of across a range of sectors, banks were preoccupied with clients’ transition plans to reduce their own financed emissions, while facing tougher disclosure regulations and public scrutiny of their continued financing of the oil and gas sector.
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With retail banking operations in Belgium, France, Italy and Luxembourg, BNP Paribas is the clear leader among a very small handful of European banks that have grown beyond being national champions in their home markets to serve personal customers across the continent.
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UBS’s financing business might not have the widest scope in the industry these days, nor does the bank top the debt and equity capital markets league tables, but what it does have is expertise that is unusually well tailored to the times. For its skill in responding to its target clients’ needs, and particularly those of financial institutions, it is our pick as western Europe’s best bank for financing.
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Charlie Nunn, who has been chief executive of the UK’s best bank since 2021, announced a new strategy for Lloyds Banking Group in the first quarter of 2022. It didn’t receive much attention as it was announced on the same day that Russia invaded Ukraine. And the new strategy is really the old strategy with a slight shift in the focus beyond cost discipline and scale efficiencies towards investing in growth and doing more for the bank’s market leading 26 million customers.
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In a quiet year for equity capital markets, BNP Paribas worked on the two main deals that took place: the $1 billion accelerated bookbuild for Energias de Portugal in March this year and the €53 million rights offer for Greenvolt Energias Renovaveis in July 2022.
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The past year has seen Societe Generale reap the benefits of its long-term investment initiative in its transaction services business across Europe.
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BGL BNP Paribas positioned itself as the strongest commercial bank in Luxembourg in 2022.
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The region's best banks, country by country
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BNP Paribas Fortis is Belgium’s best investment bank this year. It took the top position in the equity capital markets league table during the awards period, from second last year, with a 20% market share, having completed six transactions worth a total of €457 million.
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In April 2022, the European Central Bank launched a call for payment service providers, banks and technology companies to engage in the creation of prototypes for a digital euro and associated payment services.
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BNP Paribas’s wealth management team has had a stellar year. In Euromoney’s 2023 private banking awards, it was named Europe’s best private bank and the Middle East’s best private bank. It also won a hatfull of country awards, including best domestic private bank in France and best international private bank in Belgium and in Switzerland.
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Last year, Rothschild & Co advised on a higher volume of M&A transactions than any of its European rivals, with its $220 billion of completed deals putting it comfortably ahead of Barclays on $207 billion, Lazard's $185 billion, BNP Paribas' $178 billion and Deutsche Bank's $145 billion.
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BNP Paribas has also had an excellent year in its corporate and institutional banking division, particularly in its home region. The division posted record revenues in 2022, of €16.5 billion, up 16% on the previous year. The equity and prime services, global banking and securities services units all saw new highs, while global markets had its best year since 2009.
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Isabel Guerreiro, head of retail and digital for Europe at Banco Santander, describes her employer as a digital bank with branches. This is what is behind the Spanish bank’s continued success with the small and medium-sized enterprise segment across Europe.
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The volatile conditions during much of the awards period meant that banks supporting borrowers in North America needed to be flexible.
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Bank of America has become a global leader in digital banking steadily and without fuss. It has been a quiet route to success for the US financial firm; one done its own way, on its own timetable, and at its own pace.
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The most striking thing about this year’s winner of the US best super-regional investment bank award is that PNC Financial Services Group prides itself on not really having an investment bank.
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Global macroeconomic turmoil might seem far from the day-to-day concerns of small and medium-sized enterprises, but those issues are getting ever closer to the heart of their business. Inflation, supply chains, labour shortages and commodity prices were just some of the challenges thrown up in the awards period.
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Good banks do not collapse in times of turmoil. But the best banks do more than that – they are so buttressed against stress that when it strikes, they not only emerge unscathed but can act decisively in support of the whole sector. JPMorgan was that bank in March 2023, able to play that role because of its consistently superior performance.
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The volume of completed M&A deals involving a North American buyer or target was steeply down in the awards period this year, with a 41% drop to just under $2 trillion. But in volatile times activity concentrates on the very best franchises, and this year demonstrated that well. For increasing its market share and strengthening its already dominant position, Goldman Sachs is North America’s best bank for advisory.
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As the immediate chaos of the global financial crisis subsided, Morgan Stanley took a long hard look at its strategy and chose to focus on wealth and investment management. It is a decision that has paid off. Private banking generates steadier, more reliable income streams than the more cyclical business of investment banking.
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All banks today claim to have inclusion, diversity, accessibility and sustainability programmes, but some stand out for the breadth of their initiatives. Under chief executive Bharat Masrani, Canada’s TD Bank Group is one that has made corporate responsibility a priority for years in its approach to customers, clients and employees.
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Moribund primary equity capital markets and a rising interest rate environment meant that investment banks were tested more than ever in the past 12 months as they sought to give clients the options they needed in spite of poor conditions.
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From the outside looking in, sustainable finance in North America seems to act much like a see-saw. Last year, news about the wave of anti-environmental, social and governance legislation coming from Republican states was immediately followed by $500 billion of financial incentives for clean energy and healthcare under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). This was then followed by concerns over gridlock when the Republicans took control of the House.
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Citi’s transaction services bankers can be in no doubt of the firm’s commitment to their business. Chief executive Jane Fraser is on record calling the Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) division the crown jewel of the bank and she rarely misses an opportunity to refer to it. The bank invested $1 billion in technology for this business alone in 2022.
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Sometimes a franchise is suited to a moment. And in an awards period that began with the catastrophe unfolding in Ukraine, ended with a meltdown in US regional banking, and was accompanied throughout by eye-watering rate hikes, clients had no shortage of demands of their investment banks.
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Only the biggest and soundest of the US regional banks were able to come through the wreckage of March 2023 unbowed. None did so better than Citizens, a bank that was already consolidating two fine strategic moves at the start of the awards period and was able to consider another at its end. It wins the award for the country’s best super-regional bank.
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Canada’s banking market remains as competitive as ever, but one bank stands out for the strong performance of its underlying businesses as well as for completing the standout strategic move of the period. Bank of Montreal (BMO) is Canada’s Best Bank.
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Citi’s securities services business has put in an excellent year both in terms of new business and digital innovation.
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The past year posed extraordinary financing challenges for the world’s corporates. However, the political and economic conditions they faced also created an opportunity for creative banks to thrive.
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In the US, JPMorgan has 55 dedicated private banking offices, from Austin to Seattle, and Cincinnati to Fort Lauderdale. Elsewhere, it focuses heavily on serving high and ultra-high net-worth customers in Europe, where it has eight offices, including the UK and Germany, Asia, through Hong Kong and Singapore, and Latin America, with clients served out of Miami, New York and Switzerland.
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After reorganizing its fixed income business and boosting its presence in equities, BofA is making a bid to become a dominant force in global markets.
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The Singapore bank has strengthened its proposition to serve under-represented communities and aligned its own lending operations to make an impact.
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The US firm stood out for its response to volatility and ability to think ahead.
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Public-sector receptivity to innovation in sustainability and tokenization helped HSBC show the markets a glimpse of the future of bonds.
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Veteran Morgan Stanley investment bankers describe this as the busiest downturn they have ever seen. That is because they have worked on the biggest and most transformative deals in 12 months of shifting values and at times paralyzing uncertainty. The firm has made some cuts, but its new leaders are shaking the business up and bringing in the talent that will be in demand once markets settle.
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The tokenization of real-world assets is spreading fast, requiring the leaders of traditional finance to respond.
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Citi’s refocused strategy is bearing fruit as growing corporate balance sheets position it for business.
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From small-scale asset financing to innovative technologies, the French bank understands what a credible transition plan looks like.
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A bank’s sustainability strategy cannot exist without high-quality data. UBS has made it its mission to source the best.
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The growing weight of non-European markets speaks volumes about the Spanish bank’s EM capabilities as other global banks have headed for the exit.
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The Spanish lender continues to demonstrate the business case for inclusivity.
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Citi’s crown jewels sparkle in a record-breaking year for the business.
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The US firm provides the right strategic advice for volatile markets.
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The US bank prides itself on already looking like the world we live in.
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Servicing demanding SME clients pays off if you take the long-term view.
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Christian Sewing has turned Deutsche Bank around. The firm has a resilience now that would have seemed unlikely when he was appointed chief executive five years ago. By his own admission, some of the toughest work is still to be done. But the past year and the most recent banking crisis have provided a striking validation of the strategy he set in place.
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HSBC continues to lead from the front as trade finance reinvents itself.
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BNP Paribas has a well-earned reputation for steadiness and stability. In the past year, its chief executive, Jean-Laurent Bonnafé, has also reinforced his strategic credentials with the bank’s well-timed exit from its US retail business. Today, the bank stands as the eurozone leader on the global stage and is ready to play a pivotal role in the continent’s financial development.
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The bank is prepared to make tough decisions to meet its sustainability targets.
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A massive budget and a focus on in-house development have made the bank a digital innovator.
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Recent volatility has proved that crisis preparation is the key to success in banking.
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Once again, Emirates NBD walks away with the award for the Middle East’s best bank. The Dubai bank posted net profit of $3.54 billion in the full year 2022, up 40% year on year, boosted by strong returns from investment banking, treasury sales income and trade finance. It has continued that strong performance in the current year, posting a first-quarter 2023 profit of $1.63 billion, bolstered by net interest income of $1.96 billion, up 69% year on year.
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HSBC wins the award for the Middle East’s best bank for financing this year. During the awards period the bank topped the equity capital markets league tables, completing 12 deals – more than any other financial institution – worth just over $4 billion, according to Dealogic.
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Kuwaiti citizens are proud of the National Bank of Kuwait (NBK), the country’s largest bank by assets, and for good reason. NBK views itself as a pillar of the corporate and financial community. It deserves to win this award for several reasons, starting with its willingness to connect with worthy new initiatives.
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Arab Bank has long been at the forefront of innovation in lending to small and medium-sized enterprises. Its regional reach gives it the kind of presence few can match. At the time of writing, the Jordanian bank oversees a network of 600-plus branches on five continents and boasts offices in Jordan, Lebanon, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
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Citi is the standout winner of the award for the region’s best bank for advisory in 2023. In a strong year for M&A, it was way ahead of the pack. It advised on 18 completed deals collectively worth $32.1 billion, giving it a 26.5% share of the market, according to data from Dealogic.
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Mashreq Bank is a perennial winner of this award. Can any other regional lender compete with its ambition to be not just the best digital bank in the region but one of the best in the world? So far at least answer is a resounding ‘no’.
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All big banks say they are leaders in transaction services, few really are. HSBC is always in contention for this award and takes the honours after a year full of new services and innovation.
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UBS continues to assert its position as the Middle East’s best bank for wealth management. It won this award last year and the one before that – and the one before that. It is active in every important market, continues to expand its reach and innovates intelligently, introducing products tailored to regional clients’ specific needs.
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In the Middle East, sustainability is about adaptation, not just to the increasingly stark evidence of climate change but also to the global demand for a more diversified energy mix to lessen fossil-fuel extraction.
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In some years this award is a close decision, with two or three banks vying for the prize. This wasn’t one of those years.
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Best Bank: National Bank of BahrainBest Investment Bank: Sico Bank
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Despite surging global interest rates, inflation, gyrating currencies and geopolitical tensions, Ahli Islamic Bank has stayed the course. It has grown its business and worked to expand the industry, pursuing financial inclusion when it is needed most.
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RakBank isn’t the biggest or best known bank in the United Arab Emirates. But it is playing an outsized role in providing innovative Islamic banking solutions and growing the market.
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Since its inception in 2004, Boubyan Bank has carved out a specific niche in a Kuwaiti market dominated by bigger and more established players. As chief executive Abdullah Al-Tuwaijri puts it, three words serve as the guiding star for the bank’s strategy: “modern, attractive and digital.”
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The global turmoil of 2022 posed a severe test for Banque Misr and its more than 10 million customers. The one-two punch of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the foreign-currency crunch caused by surging inflation sent Egypt to the IMF.
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Kuwait Finance House’s 45th year in business was a banner one. In October 2022, the team led by acting chief executive Abdulwahab Iesa Alrushood completed the acquisition of Bahrain’s Ahli United Bank to create the world’s second-largest Islamic bank.
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Dubai Islamic Bank reported a 12% year-on-year rise in net profit in the first quarter of 2023, while total income grew by 47% over the same period – the result of strong income from financing assets and robust cost management.
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You might expect that a bank that managed to double its profit over the last year would be an easy call for the best in Bahrain. But aside from the financials, Bahrain Islamic Bank, led by chief executive Yaser Alsharifi, is a clear standout in many categories.
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Qatar’s biggest Islamic bank remains hard to beat. Last year, it offered shareholders a 17.8% return on equity, a 2.1% return on assets and one of the industry’s lowest cost-to-income ratios at 17.4%.
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Al Rajhi Bank had a busy 2022, arranging 12 high-profile transactions in the Saudi riyal and US dollar debt capital markets.
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Founded in 2009, Sidra Capital is a pioneer of private Islamic finance in Saudi Arabia, with offices in Riyadh, Dubai, Singapore and London. Licensed and regulated by the Saudi Arabian Capital Market Authority, Sidra’s Shariah-compliant asset business focuses on alternative asset classes, real estate and private finance and private equity.
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By virtually any measure, Maybank is Malaysia’s best Islamic bank. It is ahead of its rivals in market share for total assets, financing, deposits and unrestricted investment accounts.
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Bank Syariah Indonesia’s (BSI) focus on tech disruption is not typical for a state-owned lender. But southeast Asia’s biggest and most populous economy is proving fertile territory for startup finance.
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Over the last 45 years, Jordan Islamic Bank (JIB) has steadily grown its banking, financing and investment businesses in accordance with Islamic guidelines. The corporate governance code it built became the standard in Jordan and one that the central bank has taken to using as a benchmark for peers.
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Few banks take the phrase 'digital transformation' more seriously than Dukhan Bank.
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Zamarad Assets Berhad's RM255 million ($57 million) tranche 7 sukuk murabahah ABS.
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Amanat Lebuhraya Rakyat Berhad's RM5.5 billion ($1.22 billion) sustainability sukuk murabahah programme.
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Al Rajhi Bank’s SAR10 billion ($2.7 billion) retail public offer tier-1 sukuk.
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Jabal Omar Development Company’s SAR5.3 billion ($1.4 billion) debt conversion.
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Elsewedy Electric’s EGP3 billion ($97 million) Sharia-compliant multi-purpose syndicated facility.
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Abdulwahed Ahmad Rashed Bin Shabib’s AED455 million ($124 million) financing.
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Kuwait Finance House’s (KFH) commitment to embed sustainability into all that it does officially stems from the nation’s Vision 2035 plan. There is little doubt, however, that the bank itself is running well ahead that schedule.
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Mashreq Al Islami is proving year after year that an Islamic bank with industry-leading digital capabilities doesn’t need vast scale to disrupt the regional market.
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Over the last 24 years, InterVest Capital Partners has established more than 120 leasing and financing programmes, with committed capital topping $15 billion.
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It seems fitting that the world’s first full-service Islamic bank is the winner of the award for the Middle East’s best Islamic bank. Since 1975, Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) has been steadily building what is now the second-largest Shariah-compliant banking business in the world by assets.
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One transaction alone cemented Al Rajhi Bank’s claim to be the best sukuk house this year. On March 29, 2023, the world’s biggest Islamic bank by assets and market capitalization closed its first US dollar sustainable sukuk.
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Structured finance isn’t just an important part of Boubyan’s corporate banking group, it is the very core.
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For cross-border transactions, supply-side financing and capital markets, HSBC Amanah, led by chief executive Raja Amir Shah Raja Azwa, was the international Islamic bank to beat this year.
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As Indonesia prepared to host an Association of southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit in May 2023, president Joko Widodo pledged to make his economy a centre of growth in the region.
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Maybank’s global Islamic presence can be compared favourably with any of the biggest Gulf region banks. The bank is east Asia’s biggest in terms of total assets, which stand at more than $67 billion. Globally, Maybank Islamic trails only Al Rajhi Bank, SNB Capital, Dubai Islamic Bank and Kuwait Finance House.
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No matter what competitors do, contending with a 158-year-old banking major with a presence in 64 economies and a wealth balance the size of Australia’s gross domestic product is going to be hard. Especially if it has a knack for reinvention.
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Credit Suisse pioneered the family office business in Asia back in 2010 when few people even knew what this rarefied service involved: nowadays, this branch of private banking attracts scores of competitors and is responsible for one of the biggest investment booms in the region.
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Julius Baer wins the category best for philanthropic services in Asia this year. For starters, the firm doubled the number of philanthropy advisory mandates in 2022.
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With more than $740 billion in client assets in its global wealth management business, Citi embodies the modern-day financial behemoth.
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In a year of financial upheaval from all sides, JPMorgan Private Bank made things look almost easy.
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One of Switzerland’s best-capitalized institutions, Union Bancaire Privée, has slowly but surely showcased that leadership in Asia since its regional business was set up in the early 1990s.
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Most private banks in Asia now claim that environmental, social and governance investment principles are well-entrenched. But at Bank of Singapore, whose chief executive is Jason Moo, there’s a level of ambition to prove it really does look at the world through an ESG lens.
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Client goals and aspirations have always been unique. So is Union Bancaire Privée’s discretionary portfolio management (DPM) service. But the team did have to contend with big shifts in clients’ risk profiles in the past year, and their eagerness to be involved in all strategic investment decisions at a time of global volatility.
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Analysts tracking the trajectory of Asian wealth and trends around gross domestic product are free to peruse government data, surveys and all available reports. Yet some of the most telling clues as to what is going on in this fast-growing region can be found inside the balance sheet of DBS Private Bank.
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With Asia on the brink of one of the biggest-ever inter-generational wealth transfers, RBC Wealth Management finds itself in the right place at the right time.
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Julius Baer and the team led by Jimmy Lee, member of the executive board and head of Asia Pacific, look at the future in rather pragmatic terms: if you can’t predict it, why not at least do business with those most likely to shape it?
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Few things are at a greater premium in global markets than a knack for providing visibility, as well as the list of pitfalls to come. This was very much in demand in 2022 when tried-and-true yardsticks like yield spreads and stock valuations were out of sync.
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HSBC is named best digital private bank this year, in part thanks to the sheer scale of its user base and the ubiquity of its app, but also because of the firm’s constant reinvention.
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Kuwait Financial Centre (Markaz) wins Euromoney’s award for best Middle East private bank for investment research, a reflection of its research-driven culture.
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With offices in Dubai, Riyadh, Geneva and Luxembourg, BNP Paribas Wealth Management is well positioned to offer succession planning and wealth-transfer services across the Middle East.
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BNP Paribas has put environmental, social and governance at the centre of its work over the last few years and BNP Paribas Wealth Management’s approach is no different. The bank, which last year took home the world’s best bank for ESG in Euromoney’s Awards for Excellence, has successfully integrated ESG across its offerings, not least with its innovative ‘myImpact’ app.
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Emirates NBD has put a strong focus on digital and mobile banking for its private banking clients and wider customer base in 2022.
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QNB Private was the first private bank established in Qatar, but its offering for clients, particularly high net-worth individuals, spans the Middle East. QNB is the largest bank in Qatar, with a 30% market share, and has a global network that covers 31 countries on three continents.
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BNP Paribas Wealth Management is named the best private bank in the Middle East in this year’s private banking awards.
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Any bank working with ultra-high net-worth clients must understand the needs of that base from generational wealth to philanthropy. LGT Private Banking knows those needs well, owned as it is by the Princely House of Liechtenstein through the Prince of Liechtenstein Foundation.
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Across products, innovation and technology, client service and delivery, FNB’s digital banking offering is consistently one of the best and most advanced in the industry, supporting the judges' unanimous determination that it be recognised this year as Africa’s best private bank for digital.
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Wealth transfer and succession planning advice and services should be at the core of a private bank’s offering, demanding a unified, integrated approach to providing clients with experienced and expert advice across assets, business structures and local and offshore jurisdictions.
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Amid stiff competition, FNB once again rises to the top in the judges' assessment based on its strength and distinction in key areas including products, innovation and technology, and client service and delivery, making it Africa’s best private bank for discretionary portfolio management.
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Environmental, social and governance-focused investing has become a key priority for institutional investors globally over the past few years, leading to a rapid expansion in the universe of ESG-labelled investment products and funds.
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Amid turbulent times, the quality and timeliness of investment research takes on greater importance for clients as they try to navigate market volatility and mitigate risk across their portfolios.
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Size, scale, depth of client penetration – together with offering the full range of wealth management advice, products and services across multiple core markets – are key elements in recognising the leading private bank in any region.
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Credicorp’s senior management has introduced a range of initiatives to improve the sophistication of its private-bank offering, but none has been more important than its focus on the underlying research department.
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Not many new private banking mandates are won thanks to an institution’s abilities in succession planning. But many a client has been lost over a bank's poor succession planning capabilities when this becomes a touch point for clients, as it inevitably does at some stage.
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Credicorp has been investing across its private-banking business in recent years – expanding its capabilities across its growing regional footprint. The judges recognise the outcome of this effort.
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Credicorp may have been somewhat late in starting its environmental, social and governance initiative in earnest – the bank only formalized its global sustainable impact strategy in 2020 – but the results have been impressive.
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The consistent growth in both the scale and the quality of Santander’s private banking business in Latin America this year has impressed the judging panel.
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BTG Pactual is a clear leader in using digital investment to drive service innovation, client satisfaction and private banking performance. It has always been a leading private bank in Brazil (and, latterly, throughout Latin America as well), but its embrace of digitalization has enabled it to pivot its full-service investment platform to a much wider audience than its traditional wealth-management clientele.
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The judges have acknowledged BTG Pactual’s hard-earned reputation as one of the leading banks for high net-worth individuals in Brazil – and increasingly beyond.
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Santander’s progress in its family office business is recognised by the judging panel not because of any specific innovation or differentiated approach, but rather for the focus on service quality that sets the bank apart.
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Adding to its two other European awards this year, BNP Paribas Wealth Management wins the region’s Best private bank for digital award.
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Supporting its award as Europe’s Best private bank, BNP Paribas is the judges’ Best bank in the region for discretionary portfolio management, too.
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Completing its trio of European awards, LGT Private Banking is the judge’s Best private bank in Europe for environmental, social and governance investing.
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Societe Generale Private Banking has demonstrated to the judges its ability to provide differentiated and valuable advice and solutions in wealth transfer and succession planning better than its peers in the past year, supporting its regional award in this category.
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It takes a family office to know what a family office needs.
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Amid strong competition between Europe’s leading private banks, the judges agree that BNP Paribas deserves to be recognised this year as the region’s best private bank, an award supported by two other honours: best for digital and discretionary portfolio management.
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LGT Private Banking’s strong financial performance and distinctive offering creates a compelling case to make the bank the region’s best for ultra-high net-worth individuals and two others: family office services and environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing.
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Following up on its recognition last year as Euromoney’s Best bank for wealth management in Western Europe in our Awards for Excellence, UBS is now recognised as the leader in the region for high net-worth individuals.
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Of many information needs today, two of the most prominent for wealthy investors are insight and analysis that help guide them through volatile and uncertain markets, and identify opportunities to invest sustainably.
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Experience and expertise in investment are standard characteristics of most private banks. Yet, in the booming asset class of environmental, social and governance-related investments, few banks have the length and depth of experience and expertise of Morgan Stanley.
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Supporting its recognition as the world’s best private bank for family offices services, Morgan Stanley wins the regional award in this category, too.
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Supporting its awards for the world’s best private bank and best for ultra-high net-worth individuals, JPMorgan’s power and penetration in serving North America’s UHNW segment – the largest globally by number of individuals and total value of wealth – makes it the clear winner in this category for the judges.
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Across Canada and the US, RBC Wealth Management has built a compelling and powerful offering for clients across all wealth segments, enabling the bank to command a market-leading position, particularly among high net-worth clientele.
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Morgan Stanley’s focus and investment in wealth and asset management over the past few years has created an enhanced, powerful and distinctive offering, illustrated by revenues in wealth management hitting a record high of $24 billion in 2022.
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It is widely known that China’s wealth management industry has two faces: one looking out (the offshore part) and one gazing in (the onshore part). Fewer realise India, and indeed the broader subcontinent – a region full of large, fast-growing developing economies with strict capital controls – works in much the same way.
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“Deciding how and when to pass wealth on to future generations can be difficult to navigate.” So it is that Credit Suisse, in drily understated Swiss fashion, frames the immensely complex challenge of how to successfully transfer wealth from one generation to the next.
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Morgan Stanley Family Office (MSFO) has had a standout year globally. The judges note that this award recognizes its rare ability to differentiate through services to a segment that is sometimes thought of as more demanding in execution than advisory.
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In the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008, Morgan Stanley executives shook up the firm.
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Bank of Singapore (BoS) put a strong focus on environmental, social and governance in 2022, and that focus has certainly paid off. Over the last four years, the bank’s ESG investments business has more than tripled, thanks to a host of new sustainable product offerings.
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No international lender is better at serving privately wealthy China clients wherever they are in the world than HSBC.
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Lots of big lenders claim to be great at serving entrepreneurs. In reality, however, most are not as good at doing this as they would have you believe. Meeting the needs of owners of thriving businesses can be complex, tricky and costly. It requires patience and a well-considered strategy, and a good many banks have neither.
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Euromoney has recognized the best in private banking worldwide for the last 20 years through our Private Banking and Wealth Management survey. This year, we have built on this experience to launch our first Private Banking awards. This new awards programme examines the industry in more depth, recognizing institutional achievement across all aspects of the business. The categories include high and ultra-high net worth, family office services, wealth transfer and succession planning, digital services, discretionary portfolio management and ESG investing.
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Citi’s decision to create a single wealth-management platform in early 2021, Citi Global Wealth (CGW), is bearing fruit.
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UBS has long been seen as a leader in discretionary portfolio management.
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JPMorgan Private Bank wins this year’s top award, as well as being named the world’s best private bank for ultra-high-net-worth individuals 2023, and the world’s best private bank for investment research 2023.
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Keep it simple: that is how Julius Baer approaches the pursuit of private banking. That is not to say that what it does is easy.
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The impact of the supply chain disruption that was such a notable feature of last year’s trade finance survey continues to be felt as banks widen the range of services designed to improve corporate resilience.
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Best Bank: HDFC Bank
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First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) is yet again the deserved winner of the award for the Middle East’s best bank for financing.
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Goldman Sachs had a knockout year in Africa. The firm has invested heavily in the region, with a clear focus on a few core markets, notably South Africa, where it has moved to a larger office in Johannesburg and added foreign-exchange and fixed-income products that target corporate and institutional investors. In 2019, it joined forces with Investec to provide domestic equity trading services. A year later, it secured a licence to trade futures from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
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Citi’s strength across the capital markets, allied to an ability to put its balance sheet to good use with key clients, always put it in contention for the award for Africa’s best bank for financing.
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Equity Bank Kenya has been closely engaged in corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives since its launch in 1984. The award for Africa’s best bank for corporate responsibility this year is recognition of its position as a leader in the field.
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Even as some wealth managers consolidate their regional presence, focusing on one or two core markets, UBS continues to expand across the Middle East, adding relationship managers and new offices. The result is a growing business and product range attracting more new wealthy clients.
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HSBC has dominated the environmental, social and governance (ESG) space for many years, and nowhere is that more evident than in the Middle East. There are many reasons why it deserves to be named the region’s best bank for sustainable finance.
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Citi’s commitment to its customers, to innovation and to unveiling new products that adapt to the shifting needs and expectations of corporates and regulators put it easily ahead of its rivals this year.
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Best Bank: Banco Angolano de InvestimentosBest Investment Bank: Standard Bank Angola
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Mashreq Bank may not be the Middle East’s largest lender, but it is the region’s most digitally innovative and influential financial institution. Its digital journey was already well advanced when Ahmed Abdelaal was named chief executive in late 2019, but since then innovation has gone into overdrive.
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Ecobank Transnational brands itself as a pan-African lender – and such it is. Founded in 1985, it now serves millions of customers across 33 sub-Saharan African markets. And with so many multinational banks having made their excuses and departed, it is now arguably more important and integral to the region’s smaller businesses than ever before.
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M&A in Africa last year was the classic one-trick pony, in that all the action took place in a single market, South Africa. Despite that, the competition for this award was fierce. It came down to a straight fight between Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, with the former walking away with the prize in yet another impressive year.
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The banks in each market that have excelled across a range of core banking activities over the past 12 months.
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It can at times feel hard to find worthy causes and initiatives that National Bank of Bahrain (NBB) doesn’t foster and fund.
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No other private bank in Africa can compete with Standard Bank, the region’s largest by assets and earnings. The Johannesburg-based lender has a dedicated on-the-ground wealth management presence in 15 countries, including Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya, employing 449 industry professionals.
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Egypt’s Commercial International Bank (CIB) has emerged as not only a very good bank for small and medium-sized enterprises but also a key innovator in a sometimes overlooked area of finance.
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It has been a busy few years for First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB). A change at the top of the institution last year saw Hana Al Rostamani ascend to the position of group chief executive, the first woman to lead the bank.
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JPMorgan is the standout winner of the award for the region’s best bank for advisory. According to Dealogic data, the firm advised on 22 completed M&A transactions in the year to the end of March 2022 worth a total of $66.51 billion, giving it a 34.2% market share. No other investment bank came close in terms of either deal volume or deal count.
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Societe Generale deserves the award for Africa’s best bank for sustainable finance on many levels. The French bank chooses its projects wisely, demonstrating an ability to marry quantity with quality. It works in lockstep with international and local partners, and with regional private and public-sector corporates, agencies and initiatives to achieve its ambitions.
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Last year was one that saw HSBC in its best light in this region. The Middle East is not always an easy place in which to run a full-service investment bank. Some years are stellar; in others the well runs dry. But with energy prices up and governments committed to economic and financial diversification, there has never been a better time to be in the UK lender’s shoes.
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Ecobank Transnational’s sheer weight of presence – it delivers banking services to 32 million people in 33 sub-Saharan African countries – could have been a hindrance, a geographical burden. Instead, it transformed into a positive, and the bank has done so in large part by drawing up an impressively coherent digital strategy.
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Post-Barclays, Absa continues to expand its regional footprint, adding new services each year and doing the nuts and bolts of banking well. Given the central role that trade and the flow of cash play in the region, there are few more important awards than that for Africa’s best bank for transaction services – and Absa is a worthy winner.
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The region's best banks, country by country
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Ecobank Transnational ticks a lot of boxes. The Togo-headquartered bank is undeniably a true regional lender, with a presence in 33 sub-Saharan African markets, from the big (Nigeria, South Africa) to the tiny (São Tomé & Principe, Guinea-Bissau).
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Best Investment Bank: Trigon
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BNDES’s record profits in the first quarter of 2022 (up 32% over the first quarter of 2021 to R$12.9 billion) point to something transformational going on at the state-owned development bank. Led by president Gustavo Montezano since July 2019, BNDES also made R$34.1 billion ($6.68 billion) in 2021 – a record year and 65% above 2020.
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One of the consequences of Citi’s withdrawal from local banking markets in Latin America is that the US bank is especially sensitive to any potential loss of market share in corporate debt financing in the affected countries.
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BBVA has always prided itself as being an active community participant in the countries in which it operates in Latin America. However, the bank’s recent efforts to deepen the integration of its Latin American banks have increased the value of the combined efforts in this area.
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UBS reported a record year for its wealth management business in Latin America last year as the Swiss bank married regional presence with a distinctive global client proposition.
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BNP Paribas has made an environmental, social and governance virtue out of its legacy commitment to the mining and energy sectors in Latin America. A decade ago, the bank saw which way the wind was blowing and, noting that it was towards renewable power turbines, moved early into sustainable finance.
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The transaction services franchise at UniCredit combines an international network with much deeper regional coverage than other banks, typically US rivals, which lack the same network in central and eastern Europe.
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Despite selling some retail banks in central and eastern Europe to OTP, mostly in smaller markets, Societe Generale remains heavily involved in financing in this region under its global banking and advisory unit, led in CEE, Middle East and Africa by Denis Stas de Richelle. In Czech Republic and Romania, SocGen’s international banking operations are plugged into its local universal banks. But even as it has sold banks in other countries, it has sought to hold on to its sovereign and corporate clients there. It also enjoys a cooperation agreement with OTP in corporate and investment banking.
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Euromoney's Country Awards for Excellence 2022: Central and Eastern Europe
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BofA Securities wins this year’s award for Latin America’s best bank for transaction services. The bank has been steadily building up its corporate relationships in Latin America, while its digital innovation in this business has cemented its ability to provide local services at the level of the local banks.
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Best Investment Bank: BofA Securities
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The two most active investment banks in the Caribbean region are Citi and JPMorgan. While it would seem natural to consider them competitors – and of course they are – it is striking how many deals there are in which they team up.
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Despite its growth into one of biggest banks in Romania, small and medium-sized enterprises remain core to the strategy of Banca Transilvania and SMEs constitute a large proportion of its lending. In 2021, its SME loan portfolio reached L19.2 billion ($4.06 billion), with L3.7 billion of new loans during the year, reaching 18,000 SMEs and micro-enterprises.
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Greater support for capital-light investment banking business at UniCredit since the arrival of Andrea Orcel as chief executive in early 2021 is fostering a change in mindset in the firm’s advisory franchise. The region’s best bank for advisory also brought support in terms of product and sector expertise thanks to hires in Munich and Milan. That’s adding to the bank’s existing advantages in terms of geographic coverage, which includes around 50 M&A bankers spread across eight central and eastern European markets.
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Banco Lafise takes the award for the region’s best bank for small and medium-sized enterprises this year because of the adaptation of its 2021 growth model to an SME-centric approach – in line with its home market’s biggest needs.
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BofA Securities has had a busy year in which it demonstrated impressive breadth of deal-flow across countries, as well as regional leadership in two of the main product areas. Not only was the bank the best investment bank in Colombia and Peru, but it was also a close challenger for the Mexican and Brazilian awards. It is this unmatched geographical balance that makes BofA the region’s leading investment bank.
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Turkish banks are known across Europe for their advances in digital banking. This is often attributed to a relative lack of legacy IT infrastructure, but it’s also due to early investments in digital banking, as well as factors such as a younger retail base in the home market.
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The region's best banks, country by country
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Central and eastern Europe’s best bank for corporate responsibility this year inevitably goes to an institution that has focused on aid for Ukrainian refugees. For many banks in the region, this was an overwhelming priority during the first days and weeks of the war.
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BTG Pactual’s recent success has been based in large part on the digital platform that it has built in recent years. The bank targets opportunities where financial deepening, disintermediation and technological adoption intersect in Latin America.
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BTG Pactual isn’t new to winning Euromoney’s regional awards for excellence – but previous successes have been for the bank’s investment banking franchise. This year, Euromoney recognizes BTG Pactual’s successful reversal of the orthodox model of business evolution from retail and corporate banking to investment banking.
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The successful growth of BAC International Bank throughout central America and the Caribbean region led to the bank being spun off from parent Banco de Bogotá. Although the bank is no longer part of this group – it has its own listing in Panama – the primary shareholders remain Banco de Bogotá and Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo, chief executive of Grupo Aval.
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Wealth management in central and eastern Europe is undergoing a period of rapid and fundamental reorientation after the invasion of Ukraine and the accompanying international financial isolation of Russia.
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Erste Group’s long-term focus on European Union states in central and southeastern Europe proved to be particularly well judged this year. Other big banks in this region now face billions of euros of losses in Russia and major headaches in managing their operations in that state. Erste is the only major regional lender with negligible direct exposure to Russia.
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Best Investment Bank: BofA Securities
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While the main story of the 2022 Latin America awards is the emergence of BTG Pactual as a retail force, the bank’s senior management team, headed by chief executive Roberto Sallouti, clearly hasn’t let the investment banking team take its eye off the ball.
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In investment banking, deals were already becoming harder to do in central and eastern Europe before Russia invaded Ukraine, as interest rates began to creep up in the second half of 2021. Executing deals has since become even harder both because of the war and because of those rate rises.
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Best Bank: BTG Pactual
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With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatening vital energy supplies to central and eastern Europe, sustainable finance initiatives – especially in renewable energy – are more important than ever. Regional banks are increasingly focusing on sustainable finance and this year the bank that stands out is ING, CEE’s best bank for sustainable finance.
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Now, hear us out. A year ago, we were griping about Citi’s decision to sell consumer businesses in a clutch of Asian markets. The only way it made sense, we argued, was if Citi put its money where its mouth is: deployed the freed capital into its wealth and institutional businesses in Asia and doubled down on that with tangible action, rather than the proceeds just drifting into some vague balance-sheet objective.
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Best Bank: Lloyds Banking Group
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It was a knife-edge decision between Citi, stronger in top-end cash management, and HSBC, stronger in trade, this year. Last year, we decided trade was the theme to reward in a Covid-blighted year; this year we looked at progress in payments, where Citi had an excellent year.
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For a time after its IPO in August, six-year-old branchless KakaoBank was the largest financial institution in South Korea by market capitalization. That didn’t last through the global tech stock collapse – and was always a little absurd – but the $2.2 billion IPO, which is still trading above its issue price, is a reminder of just how far this institution has come.
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Best Bank: Afghanistan International Bank
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Always a strong player in small and medium-sized enterprise banking, DBS enjoyed a stellar year driven by digital investments, careful credit management and great progress in India.
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This was, as is the norm, a fight between Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. This year the award changes hands between them and goes to Morgan Stanley for the breadth of its successes.
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BNP Paribas is western Europe’s best bank for financing. It ranks first in the Dealogic bookrunner rankings in debt capital markets, ahead of Deutsche Bank in second place, JPMorgan in third, Barclays in fourth and HSBC fifth.
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While it has been a leader for many years in European debt and loan financing, BNP Paribas has in recent years built out its secondary markets businesses. It now includes a full service offering in equities as well as fixed income currencies and commodities (FICC) across research, secondary markets, prime services, derivatives and capital markets.
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Citi retains the award of best bank for financing – one of very few to be retained in a volatile year – for being good at everything it does across the financing space.
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Best Investment Bank: CIMB
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Best Bank: CaixaBank
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CaixaBank has its roots in corporate responsibility. It was founded in 1904 with the aim of fostering savings, retirement planning and disability insurance for the working class. The bank provides an interesting blueprint for CSR today through two institutions: the La Caixa Foundation and MicroBank, its specialist microlender.
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Best Bank: DBS Bank
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As European banks fight back against neobanks such as N26, Wise, Starling, Monzo and Revolut that are taking more of the incumbents’ market share and competing across every service area, it is the Spanish banks who look best placed to match them.
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Best Investment Bank: Barclays
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Small and medium-sized enterprises are particularly vulnerable to the economic shocks that have buffeted the region in recent months. Any bank that serves these businesses needs to be acutely aware of the challenges they face and have deep experience across the region in how to deal with them.
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The wealth management award is in some measure a decision about a model as much as a bank. For the last few years, we have tended to reward the big Swiss houses, UBS and Credit Suisse, who have scale, history and the advantages of being part of a larger bank. In other years, we might consider the Swiss pure-play model, the ultra-high net-worth-only model, the mass-affluent approach.
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Best Bank: BNP Paribas Fortis
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Something has been building at JPMorgan. For years, a common question in the industry has been: why isn’t the bank, for all its global strength, doing better in Asia? It has always been close to the top in Asian investment banking but rarely troubles Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley at the very highest table.
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Best Bank: Techcombank
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The region's best banks, country by country
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This year we acknowledge the transformation under way at Bank BTN, also known as Persero.
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In a record 12 months for M&A volumes, the big US banks dominated the revenue and volume league tables in Europe while, as usual, Rothschild advised on a higher number of transactions than any other firm.
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Banking in Europe remains a national sport, with only a handful of domestic champions also running large businesses beyond their home markets. Banco Santander is recognized as the region’s best bank this year as a reflection of its progress in moving operations in Portugal, Spain and the UK onto a single operating platform along with those in Poland, which it also includes in its Europe division.
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HSBC approaches sustainable finance on a different canvas to everyone else. All houses can highlight great environmental, social and governance deals by now, but HSBC doesn’t just want to tell you about a green bond or a sustainability financing. It wants to talk about shaping policy with assistance to governments and regulators; about how sustainable finance goes all the way through its banking offering to trade finance and cash management, to sustainability-linked interest rate swaps and recycled PVC credit cards.
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Best Bank: Baiduri Bank
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Western Europe’s best bank for wealth management this year is UBS. In Euromoney’s private banking and wealth management survey for 2022 the Swiss bank held off a stern challenge from JPMorgan to be named once again as the leading provider in the region.
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Best Bank: Afghanistan International Bank
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Best Investment Bank: BNP Paribas
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Always a strong candidate in this category, BNP Paribas has made great progress in its ambitious decarbonization commitments this year, in addition to prioritizing high social-impact and inclusive-finance goals.
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Malaysia’s RHB Bank is a big believer in the power of education to elevate people out of poverty and underprivilege.
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The geopolitical shock of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the end of the awards period has compounded the challenges faced by treasury teams that were emerging from the impact of the Covid pandemic. The ability to assist corporates facing severe stress in their supply chains or in their working-capital requirements quickly, flexibly and effectively is a must under these conditions. UniCredit is again named western Europe’s best bank for transaction services in recognition of the progress that it has made in this regard.
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Earlier this year, JPMorgan was named the best wealth manager in the US in Euromoney’s private banking and wealth management survey for 2022. It was also named as best for the ultra-high net-worth segment – classified as individuals or families with $30 million to $250 million in assets.
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Hamburg Commercial Bank is almost unrecognizable from its former incarnation as one of Germany’s most troubled state-owned banks. Now in private hands, it is proving that even legacy banks in the most sheltered parts of European finance can become dynamic and profitable institutions.
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The busiest 12 months ever in M&A fit perfectly with the investments Goldman Sachs has been making in its advisory business.
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The bank has achieved growth by extending its traditional private banking services to the mass affluent segment in Brazil.
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The North American capital markets witnessed unprecedented levels of activity over the awards period and Morgan Stanley has demonstrated an impressive ability to come up with differentiated advice and solid execution across all its financing businesses.
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The French bank has been busy with landmark deals and financial innovation.
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The French bank is not only effecting internal change but is also using itself as a catalyst for wider transition.
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The businesses for which Goldman Sachs is most renowned dominated investment banking last year – but so much else is going on. The firm is enjoying the pay-off from a long effort to expand middle-market coverage and has successfully built a transaction banking platform from scratch that it can now scale up.
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The US bank’s leadership on diversity is based on its commitment to transparency.
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Climate-related issues have always dominated sustainable finance, so it may raise a few eyebrows that Euromoney has named as North America’s best bank for sustainable finance a firm that saw its fossil-fuel investments jump by 87% in 2021. Indeed, until very recently, this year’s winner still boasted a long-running membership of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, which it has now let lapse.
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Banks must be able to demonstrate their ability to give the right advice in both good times and bad. Morgan Stanley shows how it is done.
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The French bank has long had global scale in fixed income, now it has the same ambitions for its equity franchise too.
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The global wealth expert has expanded its vision, horizon and profits this year
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Not content with consolidating its position at the top of the SSA rankings, JPMorgan is increasingly working with public-sector clients in frontier markets.
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In a year in which businesses were emerging from the coronavirus pandemic with a strong demand for capital to finance expansion in real estate, manufacturing equipment and distribution facilities, Bank of America was able to offer unmatched support.
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For PNC Financial, the US’s inaugural best super-regional bank, 2021 was a landmark year in a decade-long national expansion under chief executive Bill Demchak.
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From energy transition to Libor transition, the French bank is the go-to firm for many corporate clients in a time of flux. This is the result of longstanding relationships and new investment in core sectors of the franchise.
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This year, the world’s best digital bank is also North America’s best digital bank. Citi continues to bolt clever new services onto its ever-expanding yet increasingly integrated digital platform and to upgrade at a furious pace.
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Bank of America is thriving. In its home market, it has led the way in retail banking with a distinctive preferred rewards programme that offers retail customers preferential rates across a full range of products from credit cards to mortgages.
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The bank is successfully exporting its SME expertise and advanced financial technology across Asia.
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The financial inclusion skills within the bank are becoming more relevant for broader retail banking.
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The firm’s strategic focus on mid-market transactions gave it a critical advantage in a banner year for M&A.
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Goldman Sachs’s investment bank division excelled during the awards period thanks to a targeted focus on growth sectors such as healthcare, technology and financial sponsor business. This paid off handsomely on its home turf, where the bank dominated the Americas M&A league tables during the awards period, working on 582 deals with a total value of $1.6 trillion for a 30.72% market share. This is slightly ahead of the same period last year where it took 29.52% market share from 408 deals worth $1.15 trillion together.
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Truist Securities, the corporate and investment banking division of Truist Financial Corporation, wins Euromoney’s inaugural award for best super-regional investment bank in the US. The award reflects the key role it plays in the domestic financial system, providing critical funding and extending capital-raising services to large corporates and small and medium-sized enterprises.
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Investments in new industry sub-sectors have given Goldman Sachs’ financial institutions franchise a new growth engine.
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Celebrating its 190th anniversary this year, making it older than the confederation of Canada itself, Scotiabank has quite a heritage. So does Brian Porter, its chief executive, who has been at the firm for his whole career, stretching back to 1981. But when he took the helm in 2013, his job was to reposition a bank that might best have been described as a mini-HSBC.
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New layers on strong foundations have built enduring success in digital for the US firm.
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The Malaysian bank has a number of programmes to help the underprivileged across nine countries.
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The drive to make finance sustainable relies on robust data. This is something that the French bank has been working on for a decade.
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Bank of America is everywhere in the US. It serves one in five mid-sized corporates (those with revenues of between $5 million and $2 billion) and you can’t do that from one national headquarters.
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Sustainable finance is now at the top of many global banks’ agendas, but it has been there at Bank of America for a very long time already. The bank is committed to deploying $1 trillion towards zero-carbon investments by 2030, but Steve Boland, chief administrative officer, believes this initiative shouldn’t overshadow the bank’s long held belief in pursuing a sustainable growth strategy in relation to its broader corporate responsibilities. It is the continued success of this strategy that makes BofA North America’s best bank for corporate responsibility.
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HSBC has long dominated global trade finance but has also been at the forefront of digital innovation this year.
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Bank of America is the world’s best bank and Goldman Sachs is the world’s best investment bank in Euromoney’s Awards for Excellence 2022.
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Under the leadership of Brian Moynihan, Bank of America has become the poster child for stakeholder capitalism in banking. Shareholders benefit; previous strong underwriting and ample liquidity enabled it to grow loans strongly in the pandemic recovery; and management is confident it can weather the coming downturn.
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DBS has taken the boldest step yet in digital DCM, encouraging corporate and financial borrowers to self-issue commercial paper direct to investors. Volumes are strong. The next step, longer-dated bonds, will come soon.
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Network and scale make all the difference in a business where cost pressure is intense.
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Unbeatable data drives everything behind CashPro, and the platform drives payments and treasury at Bank of America in turn.
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The bank’s commitment to Asia’s frontier markets is yielding strong results.
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BMO Capital Markets is Canada’s best investment bank this year, rewarding the momentum that has propelled it up the advisory and equity capital markets league tables while also gaining ground in debt capital markets.
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The Awards for Excellence submissions that push the boundaries.
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The results of this year’s Euromoney FX survey highlight the value of long-term strategic investment in forex.
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Euromoney hosts its first private banking dinner since 2019.
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In a momentous year for the industry, the top tier of trade finance banks remained remarkably stable in this year’s Trade Finance Survey. Supply chain disruption will continue to bedevil the sector and liquidity provision together with digital innovation will place sizeable demands on trade finance banks in 2022.
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JPMorgan is named the world’s best wealth manager in Euromoney’s latest private banking and wealth management survey. It is testament to the US bank’s global strength in serving the wealthiest families, along with its drive to constantly transform itself and boost diversity as it hires the most talented relationship managers in core markets.
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This year’s cash management survey sees banks looking beyond purely pandemic-related challenges to focus on sustainable finance and investment in technology.
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Covid-19-fuelled supply chain disruption is helping to funnel global real estate demand to residential, life sciences and logistics.
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DBS is the world’s best bank and Morgan Stanley is the world’s best investment bank in Euromoney’s 2021 Awards for Excellence. New awards recognise financial innovation and the growing importance of ESG in banking.
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The Singapore-based lender has established a new benchmark for SME banking
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The Spanish group’s retail footprint makes it uniquely qualified to address unbanked, underbanked and financially vulnerable individuals.
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In a period of unprecedented volatility and disruption, Goldman Sachs has led the field in innovative financing solutions for clients.
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A flurry of new services, including DBS Digital Exchange and Climate Impact X, have kept the Singaporean lender in pole position.
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A firm famous for its elite connections, aggressive corporate culture and extreme working hours might not seem an obvious candidate for this award, but it is the right one.
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Diversification and a more relationship-focused approach to clients helped Goldman Sachs grow its markets business more than any of its big rivals over the awards period.
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The French bank’s innovative and collaborative approach to data is central to its sustainable finance strategy.
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It’s a sign of a well-run bank when it not only survives a pandemic largely unscathed but uses it as an opportunity to gain ground. Characteristically, DBS’s Piyush Gupta not only kept the bank on course but used the crisis to make two potentially transformative acquisitions, launch two new exchanges and think afresh about what banking should look like.
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In a year when the race to net zero really got under way, biodiversity protection rose to the top of the agenda and Covid exacerbated the need for social support, one bank stood out for innovation, breadth of coverage and rigorous use of data
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Bank of America’s integrated and pioneering approach to corporate responsibility has paid off again this year.
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The firm leads in big, transformational M&A and sees advising on the sell side of Spac mergers as a hedge if regulators crack down on mega-deals.
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Technology keeps BofA at the vanguard of payments. Covid-19 drove both deposits and innovation at the US bank.
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Financial innovation of the year 2021: EIB shows how security tokens may transform financial marketsEuromoney’s inaugural award for innovation goes to a groundbreaking issue of digital native tokens on a public blockchain in a syndicated bond deal that drew interest from 100 investors. While institutional money flows into crypto and DeFi, leading banks and issuers are now also keen to transform traditional markets with digital assets and digital cash.
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Renowned for its prudence and conservatism, the bank was in a strong position going into the pandemic. Investment in digital banking and risk management make it well placed to thrive once the crisis is over.
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The great financial innovator shone again in global wealth management.
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In a tough year, quality and quantity mattered to the public sector. BNP Paribas offered both.
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After merging with Bankia, CaixaBank has become the undisputed champion of Spanish retail banking. At a time when the sector is facing profound challenges, it’s already on the way to realizing crucial cost savings. Euromoney talks to executive chairman José Ignacio Goirigolzarri and chief executive Gonzalo Gortázar about this transformational merger.
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The US bank has turned pandemic-inspired strategic conversations with companies into mandates.
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A full range of best-in-class products, strong advisory capabilities and global reach are more important than ever in post-pandemic corporate banking.
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Strength in equity capital markets and M&A, as well as a close relationship with the bank’s tech team, has created a winning formula this year.
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The bank is keen to get started on taking the tough decisions needed to achieve net zero.
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Under the leadership of James Gorman, Morgan Stanley has reshaped its business mix in ways that it thinks will position it for a world in which its clients need more connectivity than ever. Driving that process in its investment bank is co-president Ted Pick.
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The region's best banks, country by country
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The region's best banks, country by country
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The region's best banks, country by country
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The region's best banks, country by country
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First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) again takes the award for the Middle East’s best bank for financing. Under its head of global corporate finance, Andy Cairns, the Abu Dhabi-based lender led the way in MENA, completing $4.75 billion worth of loans – more than any of its rivals, local or global – for a 19% share of the market. It was the key regional player in ECM and debt capital markets in the awards period, demonstrating again why it is so strong in this category.
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A barnstorming year in primary equity markets and M&A advisory, combined with consistent and comprehensive debt capital markets coverage, earn Citi the award for the region’s best investment bank.
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It was another strong year for Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), which saw increased provisioning at the start of the pandemic but had good performance throughout and is now well placed to benefit from the post-crisis recovery. Once again it is Euromoney’s choice as Canada’s best bank.
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Morgan Stanley retains the advisory award after leading the field in Asia Pacific by volume, deal count and regional diversity. Dieter Turowski is chairman, investment banking at Morgan Stanley Asia Limited.
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For banks across the world, the coronavirus pandemic created countless new challenges in servicing clients and many sought answers in the acceleration of their digital development. Over a number of years Citi has been working to improve its digital offerings across all its businesses – work that stood it in good stead to help retail and institutional clients tackle the new environment they faced in 2020.
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The region's best banks, country by country
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Under chief executive Bolaji Balogun, Chapel Hill Denham has become Nigeria’s preeminent independent investment bank, rivalling Standard Bank’s Stanbic IBTC for dominance. Its leadership is most evident on the advisory side, where it’s the go-to house in Africa’s biggest economy.
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Standard Bank is once again a worthy winner of the award for Africa’s best bank for wealth management. It offers wealth management services in southern, eastern and parts of western Africa – 15 countries in all, including South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.
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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.
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Sustainable finance is rapidly gaining traction in the Turkish banking sector, with Akbank, Isbank, Vakifbank and Ziraat Bank all issuing ESG-labelled bonds in the year to the end of March.
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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.
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UBS performed strongly again in Euromoney’s global private banking and wealth management survey in 2021. It topped the western Europe regional rankings for: best private banking services overall; serving mega high net-worth clients worth more than $250 million; family offices; business owners; and high net-worth clients with $5 million to $30 million to invest.
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The region's best banks, country by country
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Transaction services was affected by the pandemic in two significant ways. One was on the cash management side, where there was a forced acceleration of digital initiatives and of their take-up by corporate clients. That was interesting, but by and large it was happening anyway.
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It was yet another impressive year for HSBC in sustainable finance. At a global level the bank is committed to net-zero on carbon emissions. At a regional level it has a team of 39 staff, led by its head of sustainability, Europe and the Middle East, Sabrin Rahman. They engage with clients on ESG, sustainable finance and transition strategies.
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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.