Top 1000 World Banks - Buoyant US banks strengthen grip in North America

While the US administration continues to make headlines through historical summits, threats of trade wars and attacks on long-standing international allies, it is also creating a more lax and buoyant environment for its banks. The softening of much of the Dodd-Frank body of legislation – created to safeguard taxpayers after the financial crisis and which has weighed on banks’ activity since – has been good news for the sector.

By the time of the first rollbacks, approved earlier in 2018, the largest US banks were already in very good shape, displaying stable capital to assets ratios and growing profits. Based on the latest annual results, JPMorgan and Bank of America continue to lead the North American ranking. Wells Fargo and Citigroup follow in third and fourth positions, having swapped places from the 2017 ranking.

Out of the top US banks, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley enjoyed the highest profit growth in 2017 – 16.15% and 17.25%, respectively – but American Express leads the return on capital table. Despite closing 2017 with profits slightly lower than the previous year, a larger drop in the Tier 1 capital of the credit card specialist secured the high ratio and the prime spot in the profitability ranking.

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) also features in the same table, in fifth place, with an impressive 25.14% – the highest among North America’s big lenders.

RBC is once again the largest Canadian name in the regional table, in seventh place. It is followed by Toronto Dominion Bank in eighth. While Canadian lenders recorded lower capital on assets ratios than their US neighbours in their 2017 results, Tier 1 capital growth comfortably surpassed assets growth at all bar one Canadian bank. Profit growth also appeared livelier, with double-digit growth for all six Canadian banks in the table.

New to The Banker's Top 1000 World Banks ranking are three US banks: Pacific Premier Bancorp, a Californian lender; Texas-based Independent Bank Group; and Seacoast Banking Corporation Bank of Florida. Pacific Premier Bancorp enters into the global ranking, having more than doubled its Tier 1 capital, and is the second highest moving North American lender after Sterling Bancorp. Independent Bank and Seacoast also notably expanded their Tier 1 capital in 2017, by 68.15% and 45.02%, respectively.

Top 25: North America ($M)

Highest Movers: North America

Top Five ROC: North America

New Entrants: North America ($M)