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. 

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. 

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.

For the first time since 2013, when AFME started tracking capital ratios at systemically important banks in the EU, the average end-point CET1 ratio had declined slightly year-on-year by the end of 2018. 

Globally, M&A activity is down on the first quarter of 2018, though it is business as usual in the US.

European investment banking fees are down by about a quarter over the first three months of 2019, compared with the first quarter of 2018. 

Data from Boston Consulting Group shows that North American banks have paid more in terms of value than European institutions over the past decade. Kat Van Hoof reports.