Although Asia-Pacific’s share of profits has fallen for the third consecutive year, banks from the region still dominate The Banker's ranking by this measure, accounting for 48.28% of profits among the Top 1000 World Banks. In terms of return on capital (ROC), Papua New Guinea’s Bank of South Pacific, is at 13th, the highest ranked bank from the region, with an ROC of 47.77%, while four Pakistani lenders and one Sri Lankan bank also make the Top 25.
North America’s share of profits increased in the 2016 ranking, from 22.56% to 24.92%, but the country’s American Express Company is the region’s only bank among the Top 25 by ROC.
Western Europe is slowly rising in the profits table, and banks from the region have continuously produced greater profits since the 1.59% reported in 2013’s rankings. Levels have since risen to 14.2% in the 2015 ranking, and now 15.69% this year. Positive results in the region are largely driven by asset management and private banking institutions such as third ranked by ROC Banca Generali, and Mediolanum (24th), though big hitters such as Deutsche Bank posted their first losses since the 2008 rankings.
Middle Eastern banks also increased their share of profits in 2016, to 4.42% from 3.85% in 2015’s ranking, although no bank reported sufficient ROC to be among the top 25 in the world.
The profits share in Latin America and the Caribbean fell from 5.69% in 2015’s ranking to 4.5% this year. Yet, nine banks in the top 25 are from the region. Five banks from Venezuela would have also made the Top 25, but The Banker excluded these as their presence would distort the results due to extreme differences between official exchange rates and black market rates and hyperinflation in the country (which stood at 180.9% in December). Venezuelan banks are included in the aggregate figures, however.
Africa’s share of profits has fallen slightly from 1.88% to 1.71% year on year, although six banks from the region made it into the Top 25, including Ethiopia’s CBE, which leads the overall ranking with ROC of 118.18%.
Central and eastern Europe (CEE) is again the region with the lowest share of profits, falling from 1.02% in 2015’s rankings to 0.49% in 2016. Romania’s Banca Transilvania was the only CEE bank in the Top 25, emphasising a domestic success story: pre-tax profits at Romanian banks increased by 296.42% in fiscal 2015. At an aggregate level, profits in CEE fell by 38.73%.
