Bank of America retained its lead in the Top 1000's global ranking, and therefore also in the North American ranking. In last year’s ranking, the North Carolina-based lender knocked JPMorgan off the top position thanks to its conspicuous efforts to boost capital, resulting in a Tier 1 capital a third larger than the one featured in the 2009 ranking. This year, capital kept on growing – although by only 1.91%. JPMorgan’s Tier 1 capital grew by the larger ratio of 7.13% – in contrast to the drop of 2.3% showed in last year’s listing – but it was not enough to reclaim the top spot. Its $142.45bn Tier 1 capital is about $20bn shorter than Bank of America’s.
Capital-assets ratios (CARs) remained strong for all US lenders after the financial crisis focused attention on banks’ strength as opposed to profitability, with values of 7.22 for Bank of America, 6.73 for JPMorgan and 6.59 for Citi, the regional ranking’s third largest lender.
