The highest capital-to-asset ratios (CAR) in The Banker’s 2013 Top 1000 rankings have nudged upwards from last year, with even the region that was the weakest in 2012's ranking – western Europe – improving.
The CAR is a measure of soundness in the banking industry and is an inverse measure of leverage – ie, the higher the CAR, the lower the leverage. The highest CAR in the tables is yet again France’s Electro Banque, with a CAR of 95.09%. This is even higher than its 2012 figure, which also topped the CAR rankings, of 89.2%. This again was an improvement on the bank’s winning CAR figure of 88.83% in 2011.
