Bank consolidation in sub-Saharan Africa is in full swing. Large and stable banks are growing steadily as a result, while many small and inefficient banks are disappearing. 

In a year of haves and have-nots, Asian banks took the biggest beating, fronted by an overall pre-tax profit decline in both China and Japan.

London leads the way for the issuance of green bonds, trading $5.74bn in the first quarter of 2019, followed by Dublin and Luxembourg. Silvia Pavoni reports.

Assets at Chinese institutions may have grown enormously, but the US crushes China when it comes to pre-tax profit growth.

As western Europe drops from first place in the light of a lower capital adequacy ratio, China improved its soundness by the largest margin. 

United National Corporation of the US tops the return on assets ranking. Regionally, Africa performs well, but Japan and China are stagnant.

Russian bank Otkritie leads the highest movers table, a year after topping the biggest losses table. 

US investment into mainland China has all but dried up as the trade war heats up. 

Banks in Europe have been going big on green investments over the past two years, as a report by Moody's shows.

Asset growth is likely to accelerate in 2019-20 for GCC Islamic banks after a difficult 2018.