Soundest: Comparing the capital/assets ratio of different banks can be like comparing apples and oranges. A high ratio can reflect the underlying risk of assets but it can also reflect a particular business model.

The most conspicuous change to the list of sub-Saharan African banks in the Top 1000 is the proliferation of Nigerian institutions. This reflects the impact of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s decree that banks there meet a new minimum capital requirement of N25bn ($192m), up from just N2bn.

High oil prices and massive liquidity have continued to produce booming profits and exceptional growth for most Middle East banks, particularly those in the Gulf region.

The headlines about Latin America this year have been dominated by left-wing outpourings from Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez, by Bolivian President Evo Morales’s nationalisation of the country’s oil and gas fields and by corruption allegations involving Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration, which may well put his re-election in jeopardy.

There are no big surprises in the North American ranking, where Citigroup still leads its nearest domestic rival by a similar margin to that of last year. Then, it led JPMorgan by virtue of $74.4bn in Tier 1 capital to the latter’s $68.6bn; this year, it leads Bank of America Corp with $79.4bn against BofA’s $74bn.

The procession of major bank initial public offerings (IPOs) emerging from China are affecting the Top 25 Asia (excluding Japan) ranking. China Construction Bank (CCB), which raised $9.2bn in an IPO in Hong Kong last October, races to the top of the table with $35.6bn of Tier 1 capital, but its stay at the top may be short-lived.

Japan’s banks continue to make steady progress back to health, and many would argue that the big banks are already there. With an aggregate pre-tax profit of $51.3bn, the Japanese banking sector has surpassed last year’s $32.4bn, and left 2003’s pre-tax losses of $39.3bn a distant memory.

Russian banks continue to dominate our Top 25 Central and Eastern Europe listing, reflecting both the paucity of foreign-owned banks in Russia and the lack of locally owned banks in central Europe as a result of a large number of acquisitions by foreigners.

There was no change in the top three in this year’s Top 25 western Europe rankings with HSBC, Crédit Agricole and Royal Bank of Scotland placing first, second and third – as they did in 2005.

The overall winners of this year's Top 1000 World Banks.