Western Europe experienced a 6.3% decrease in aggregated risk-weighted assets (RWAs), to $12,682bn, during the 2018 review period of the Top 1000 World Banks ranking. This is a major turnaround following a jump of 16.2% in 2017. It is a positive indication that some of the de-risking work being done in one of the world’s most mature banking markets is beginning to pay off, as its biggest banks continue in their efforts to cut their RWAs.
Latin America and Japan were the only other regions that saw drops, of 3.5% and 0.6%, respectively. The rest of the world saw rises in RWAs for the second year running. Africa saw the biggest jump, up 9.2% year-on-year, followed by the Middle East, which saw an increase of 6.3%. However, overall, the 2019 Top 1000’s combined RWAs remained at the same level as last year’s edition, at $59,909bn.
