Bank of the Year Awards 2022 — Global and regional

Global and Western Europe

BBVA 

As testament to its growth story across the multiple countries it operates in, BBVA has taken the crown as the Global Bank of the Year 2022, while also picking up the western Europe award and country awards for Colombia, Peru and its home market of Spain.

In 2021, BBVA posted its best recurring profit of the past decade, €5.07bn — nearly doubling the 2020 figure — and ended the year with a solid common equity Tier 1 capital ratio of 12.75%, which is both above the regulatory requirement and the bank’s target range of 11.5-12%.

In addition to its strong financial metrics, the bank’s approach to innovation, sustainability and customer segmentation sets it apart from its peers. It is truly an institution at the forefront of international banking.

“This recognition is confirmation of BBVA’s distinctive strategy to grow profitably with solid quarter-on-quarter results. This allows us to create value for our shareholders, relying on innovation and sustainability as strategic levers,” says BBVA chair Carlos Torres Vila. 

“In all of our markets, we have been pioneers in digitisation to help our customers make better decisions when it comes to their money,” he continues. “We have also taken on a substantial role in supporting the transition to a more sustainable economy, with a dual focus on climate action and inclusive growth.”

The bank is well on its digital transformation journey, which gives it the flexibility needed to experiment with new offerings, engage in new partnerships and enter new markets. Importantly, BBVA shares its learnings from one country to another, but also tailors each offering for the local jurisdiction, such as the launch of BBVA Italy, a digital retail banking platform. 

BBVA is a leader in using technology to deliver a better customer experience. The launch of its extreme customisation marketing campaigns in Spain, powered by artificial intelligence, is one just one example of how it is taking personalisation to the next level. It is working on producing advanced models capable of analysing internal data, trends and business needs to introduce dynamic pricing and next-best-action suggestions.

On top of this, it is transforming the relationship with its customers towards a more do-it-yourself and remote model, which will help to futureproof its business. For example, the core set of digital tools for personal finance management is now available in all of the countries it operates in: Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Turkey and Spain. However, BBVA is aware that not everyone is digitally savvy and has pledged to leave no one behind, supporting those on the margins of digitisation through specific programmes.

The banking group has spent more than five years exploring blockchain technology. In 2020, BBVA’s Swiss subsidiary rolled out a cryptocurrency custody and trading service available for private banking clients. In 2022, it launched a new digital service called New Gen, a 100% digital investment account that allows new customer segments beyond private banking to combine traditional and digital financial assets in the same investment portfolio.

The group is also investing in the entrepreneur ecosystem, supporting fintechs and digital banks, which is helping to drive change in the global financial services industry. For example, it has made investments in newly created digital banks, such as the UK’s Atom Bank, Solarisbank in Europe, and more recently Neon in Brazil, where BBVA invested €300m.

BBVA has raised sustainability to the highest executive level of the organisation. The bank’s commitment to sustainability, and helping its clients transition toward a more sustainable future, is evidenced in the launch of its carbon footprint digital calculator for individual, small and medium-sized enterprises, and commercial customers. 

In addition to tracking how their behaviour impacts the environment, the tool provides personalised recommendations to reduce their carbon footprint. In a first in Spain, BBVA launched a simulator tool to help facilitate the decision to purchase an electric car.

Central and Eastern Europe 

OTP Bank

Not only has OTP Bank managed to maintain its dominant position in its home country, Hungary, but it is continually expanding across central and eastern Europe. Its stellar performance over the review period cinched its win as the regional Bank of the Year, as well as helping it pick up five country awards.

In 2021, its Tier 1 capital increased by 26%, its asset base by 18% and net profits jumped 76%, to Ft456.4bn ($1.2bn). During the year, it acquired Nova Kreditna Banka Maribor in Slovenia, as well as the Albanian subsidiary of Greece’s Alpha Bank.

“The highlights in 2021 are our record annual profit, the excellent performance of all subsidiary banks and business lines, our outstanding capital adequacy, stable liquidity and strong volume dynamics,” says László Wolf, deputy CEO of OTP’s commercial banking division. “We managed the challenges successfully and came out stronger overall.

“However, the deteriorating economic environment as a consequence of the war [in Ukraine] is testing our resilience again,” he adds. “Moreover, a large number of our Ukrainian colleagues are also affected in humanitarian crisis situations.” The bank has mobilised donations across the group, as well as fundraised among customers and provided temporary housing for refugees.

OTP Bank’s strategic priorities are full digital transformation, sustainability and growth. In 2021, OTP updated several of its digital solutions, including its ‘Chatbot Builder’, ‘Videobank’ and online account OTP Lejer.

The bank prioritises digitalisation efforts and looks to partner with innovative technology firms and start-ups. “We are also looking for opportunities in areas beyond banking — we have started building special ecosystems in the areas of health, digital and real estate,” says Mr Wolf.

Sustainability has been raised to one of OTP Bank’s most strategic priorities — it is committed and actively engaged in financing the transition to a less carbon-intensive economy. On July 5, OTP Bank issued its first euro-denominated MREL-eligible green bonds, with an order book well above €400m.

Asia-Pacific

Siam Commercial Bank

Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) has undertaken a radical transformation which has changed the shape and the approach of its whole banking business. Its hugely ambitious project, which is already starting to show good results, is the reason why the bank has been selected as the winner of the Asia-Pacific Bank of the Year 2022. 

The bank’s establishment of SCBX has given it the space to create and innovate at the very cutting edge of banking technology. This division will oversee subsidiaries in finance, financial technology, and digital platform business to encourage growth alongside the core banking business. 

Among SCBX’s subsectors is venture capital investment arm, SCB 10X, which is targeting innovations that will benefit the bank. These include participating in a Series B round raised by Talos, a provider of institutional digital asset trading technology. SCB 10X also made a follow-on investment in the Series B round of Sygnum, the world’s first digital asset bank.  

Another move through SCBX was to spin off the bank’s card business to increase flexibility and enhance competitiveness. Card X operates the credit card and personal lending business, which uses artificial intelligence to implement advanced credit decisioning models and personalisation models. It is focused on capturing the low-income segment, freelance workers, the younger generation, and those in their early careers. Customers can access 24-hour chatbots for support. 

In addition to its technological overhaul, SCB has laid out sustainable finance goals, providing responsible lending by following the guidelines of the Bank of Thailand and the Thai Bankers’ Association. It also became the first Thai lender to sign up to the Equator Principles Association, whose members adhere to the risk management framework for determining, assessing and managing environmental and social risk in project finance. 

“A better bank requires addressing multiple challenges, particularly competition from non-bank enterprises,” says Kris Chantanotoke, CEO of SCB. “Success will be determined by optimising business portfolios, responding holistically to customers’ needs and pain points, increasing digitisation to support digital sales, generating additional fees from strategic partners, and reducing cost-to-income ratios, while maintaining solid capital.” 

Americas

BTG Pactual 

Brazil’s BTG Pactual, one of the biggest investment banks in Latin America, has delivered strong results yet again. In the past four years, the bank’s revenue has increased by an impressive 160%, reaching 13.9bn reais ($2.6bn) in 2021. Last year alone, it recorded a 59.5% rise in net profits, to 6.3bn reais. 

Impressively, the bank’s strong performance was achieved within the context of a challenging economic environment.

BTG Pactual has proved its strength in a number of segments: investment banking, corporate lending, sales and trading, wealth management and asset management. In the past few years, it has been pushing into consumer banking as well, leveraging capabilities acquired over the years. 

Back in 2018, it launched its first initiative in the retail space: BTG Pactual Digital (renamed BTG Investmentos), a digital investment app targeting Brazil’s high-income retail market. In 2021, it launched a fully digital consumer banking app. 

Entering the retail segment has conversely helped its private banking operations. From between the first quarter of 2021 to the same period of 2022, it added 194bn reais of net new money.

BTG Pactual is also offering solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). For example, it launched a fully digital transactional bank, BTG Empresas, aimed at this segment. SMEs can also approach BTG Pactual for supply chain credit financing and transactional banking products.

The bank has cemented its status as one of the most innovative sector players. It is positioned to take full advantage of increasing digital adoption, launching innovative financial products for its clientele. Such efforts began several years ago with the move the cloud initiated in 2016. 

“Over the past 12 months we have benefitted from investments in technology, while entering new client segments and consequently operating the business with more diversification and stability,” says BTG Pactual’s CEO Roberto Sallouti. “We consider ourselves an all-weather equity story, where we continue to significantly grow top-line and earnings in a more challenging macro scenario with higher inflation and interest rates.” 

Middle East 

National Bank of Kuwait

For the first time in 11 years, a Kuwaiti bank has been selected as the Middle East’s Bank of the Year. Amid stiff competition, National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) has been selected as the regional winner for 2022, in recognition of the landmark launch of Weyay (‘with me’ in Arabic), the country’s first digital-only lender. 

Developed over a period of 12 months and launched in November 2021, Weyay is targeted at customers in the under-35 demographic in Kuwait — which accounts for two-thirds of the population — with a view to capturing increased market share in allowance transfers and first-jobber Kuwaitis, and later rolling out the service across its international footprint. 

Weyay accounts can be opened by sending a selfie and scanning the customer’s civil ID or Kuwait mobile ID. Customers are able to choose the colour of their card, track their spending, store e-cards for services including iTunes, Amazon and the PlayStation Store, and instantly transfer funds to other Weyay users.

The launch of Weyay is the most visible aspect of NBK’s digital transformation, which continued apace during the review period. Other digital highlights included the bank’s participation in the implementation of the Kuwait National Payment System in 2021, together with its deployment in the same year of the MX.3 treasury management platform in collaboration with Murex.

Last year also saw the bank consolidate NBK and its private banking operations to form a new NBK wealth management division, with a view to increasing the bank’s market share in asset management both in Kuwait and across its footprint, notably in Saudi Arabia. The new division surpassed its targets for the year, with more than $2bn worth of asset management products and transactions launched or placed with clients of the group.

On the corporate banking side, the NBK Group introduced cross-border receivable financing, whereby the receivables of the prime customers of clients are discounted by the bank.

After profits fell in 2020, the NBK Group recorded a strong recovery in 2021, with net profits rising by 47% and return on equity increasing from 7% to 10.2%.

Africa 

Equity Group Holdings

After a dip in net profits in 2020, Equity Group Holdings enjoyed an impressive recovery in 2021, increasing profits by a hefty 99% and assets by 29%, while return on equity increased from 15.3% to 26.1%. Two of its largest operations — in Uganda and its home market of Kenya — received country prizes in this year’s awards.

Yet, it is Equity’s Eastern and Central Africa Recovery and Resilience plan — a $6bn stimulus plan for the six markets in which the group operates — that sees the group take home the Bank of the Year award for Africa. 

Launched in early 2022, the initiative is designed to accelerate economic recovery from the impact of Covid-19 in eastern and central Africa by providing financing — in the form of blended financing of short-term overdrafts, medium-term loans and credit facilities which require long-term project and development financing — of up to Ks678bn ($5.56bn) over a five-year period. The plan will have a special focus on women and young people, supporting them to be the primary drivers of creating and expanding opportunities in the real economy. 

The programme will focus on several key sectors, principally food and agriculture, and is intended to unlock productivity gains and value addition ecosystems to achieve food security for the region, while increasing value creation. It seeks to leverage productive capacities and comparative advantages to transform the region into a manufacturing hub that converts agricultural raw material into finished products for export and national use.

“The plan [leverages] the capacity of the private sector and public–private partnerships to finance, de-risk and build capacity for the African continent by impacting five million micro, small and medium-sized enterprises — 25 million individuals — to create 50 million direct and indirect jobs,” says James Mwangi, group managing director and group CEO of Equity Group Holdings.

Mr Mwangi adds: “We are honoured to be recognised by The Banker and the Financial Times in the 2022 Bank of the Year Awards as Kenya’s Bank of the Year, Uganda’s Bank of the Year and regional winner in Africa.” 

Banking in the Community 

Scotiabank

“Economic resilience doesn’t just happen for many disadvantaged individuals – it has to be nurtured and invested in,” says Meigan Terry, Scotiabank’s chief sustainability, social impact and communications officer.

Launched in January 2021, ScotiaRISE is the bank’s 10-year, $500m community investment initiative designed to foster economic resilience among disadvantaged groups. It represents the culmination of two years of planning by Scotiabank to harness its expertise, resources and funding to deliver maximum impact behind a single cause.

To this end, ScotiaRISE is structured around three key focus areas: supporting immigrants and refugees so they can better integrate, contribute and prosper within their local communities; the improvement of secondary school graduation rates and higher education participation; and the removal of barriers to career advancement for disadvantaged groups.

In its first year, ScotiaRISE has supported more than 200 community partners and delivered $26m in community investments to programmes across Scotiabank’s markets. These include a $400,000 investment in Talent Lift Canada’s employment relocation scheme, which helps connect hiring managers with refugee communities. Another signature programme is Scotiabank’s $2.15m partnership with YMCA Alternative Suspension, an out-of-school intervention programme that helps vulnerable teenagers stay in formal education.

A unique aspect of ScotiaRISE lies in how its performance can be measured, which is not only in the quantity of funds invested but also in the positive outcomes the initiative makes possible. To date, Scotiabank says the initiative has enabled more than 358,000 critical moments of support for people in need across ScotiaRISE’s key focus areas. 

“Through these efforts, more than 22,000 individuals have benefited from acts of allyship, cross-cultural training and anti-bias or inclusion programming; 73,000 individuals received mentorships to help progress in their careers; and 50,000 were provided with financial education and support,” according to Ms Terry.

She adds: “As we learn more about the systemic barriers to economic inclusion, we will evolve the way ScotiaRISE will invest in helping people and communities overcome those challenges — in support of a better and more inclusive future.” 

Financial Inclusion 

Santander

In a highly competitive category, Santander emerges as a clear winner due to its commitment to serving financially excluded communities and small businesses on a large scale with its ‘Finance for All’ initiative, a comprehensive suite of services that blends digitalisation with financial education.

Santander says it is on track to exceed its target of reaching 10 million underbanked people across Europe, North America and Latin America by 2025 this year – something that has taken four years and is still remarkably ahead of schedule. This target is now due to be revised upwards to an even more ambitious goal.

In Latin America, where an estimated 300 million people remain unbanked, Santander’s primary focus is to improve access to the financial system with initiatives such as Superdigital, its flagship mobile payments platform that leverages the rapid regional growth in smartphone adoption to help individuals gain access to formal banking services. 

“Superdigital is part of PagoNxt, the payment's tech backbone of Santander. It allows us to help people access banking products and services in Latin America so they can make payments; use basic, tailored financial services; take greater control of their finances; and make faster and more secure transactions,” says Leopoldo Martínez Cruz, CEO of Superdigital. “To achieve this ambition, we developed an innovative digital ecosystem inside a proprietary platform – cloud native, mobile first, API driven – that operates in a multi-country, multi-language and multi-currency core system.” 

In Brazil, Superdigital’s largest market, the platform also provides services for micro-entrepreneurs, enabling them to pay suppliers and receive payments from their customers. Santander plans to grow the platform’s user base to five million customers by 2023 across seven Latin American markets.

In addition, Santander has launched multiple microfinance products to serve individuals and small businesses who face challenges in obtaining credit: Tuiio in México; Prospera in Brazil, Uruguay and Colombia; and Surgir in Peru. According to the bank, these initiatives have supported 1.2 million micro-entrepreneurs in the region, of which 70% are women.

Financial education is also considered a key component of Santander’s strategy. In 2021, the bank’s educational programmes helped 1.3 million people boost their financial literacy. 

Tailored to local needs, notable programmes include Finansiaki in Poland, which teaches financial awareness to children, while in Chile, the Sanodelucas online education platform has benefited more than a million individuals since 2019.