The Banker is famous for going to the parts of the world that other magazines don’t reach and at awards time we really excel ourselves. This year, we notched up another five countries to receive our famous Bracken awards, taking the total to 138.
Our aim is to close the gap between our country awards and the total number of countries in the world: 193. Each year we get a little bit closer.
The total number of entries received for the awards was also a record: 510 – up by 100 on 2004, illustrating how The Banker Awards has become an institution in our industry.
Congratulations go out to all our winners and especially to HSBC, which wins our Global Bank of the Year award for the fourth year running.
This year, as well as spreading our geographical reach, we have revamped our investment banking awards to give them a regional focus and created a new award: Global Investment Bank of the Year. Congratulations to Merrill Lynch for being our first winner. We look forward to getting together with as many of the winners as possible at our awards dinner, which takes places at the Dorchester Hotel, London, on September 6. Keynote speaker is John Tiner, chief executive of the UK’s Financial Services Authority.
The Banker Awards is a vast project that takes place over many months and involves huge amounts of administration. Thanks this year go to special projects editor Silvia Pavoni and to Chelsea Clavarino for managing the process.
As well as containing coverage of our awards, this edition of The Banker is our Sibos issue and one of six special supplements looks ahead to the meeting and its “transformation” agenda. Sibos attendees will also be interested to read our update on the Financial Services Action Plan, which seems to have stalled.
Our other supplements look at Trading Systems, Cash Management, the Branch of the Future, Core Banking and the Dubai International Financial Exchange, reflecting the broad character of The Banker.
In investment banking, our agenda column gets the views of Jonathan Moulds and JC Perrig on Bank of America’s attempts to move into the top tier of global debt houses, our team of the month profile looks at CSFB’s back-to-basics underwriting deal for UK food producer RHM and we look at the potential convergence of hedge funds with private equity.
In our countries section, we have reports on Croatia, Bolivia and Haiti, and our viewpoint comes from Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala II, chairman of Bank of the Philippine Islands, who discusses the impact of global demographics on his country’s economy.
Our retail strategy section reports on Western Union’s new bank launch, and tech vision is an interview with John Galante, chief technology officer at JPMorgan’s Worldwide Securities Services.
