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Asia-Pacific dominates global stage

The Asia-Pacific region retains its global dominance, with the most banks in the Top 1000 and the biggest share of Tier 1 capital.
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Global structure: where they come from; Global structure: share of global Tier 1 bank capital

The trend for emerging markets to increase their presence in The Banker’s Top 1000 World Banks ranking continued in 2013. For some years Asia-Pacific banks have been increasing their numbers, from 321 in 2010 to 345 in 2011, moving on again to 349 last year and just fractionally forward again in 2013 to the rounded number of 350.

This makes them the largest grouping by far in pure numbers with second placed western Europe boasting only 231 banks, down from 239 last year. This gives Asia-Pacific 119 more players than western Europe, even though the two regions’ shares of Tier 1 capital are almost identical at 34.94% for Asia-Pacific and 34.63% for western Europe.

Relatively small moves in Tier 1 capital have pushed the Asia-Pacific region ahead of western Europe from the reverse positions they held in last year’s ranking. Over the past 12 months, Asia-Pacific’s capital has increased by 1.21 percentage points while western Europe’s has diminished by 1.01 percentage points. The excitement now must be over how much further this process can go – will Asia-Pacific, with its faster growth rate, eventually dwarf western Europe in terms of capital? And will consolidation in Asia lead to a smaller number of bigger banks so that it begins to look structurally more like western Europe?

Just as Asia-Pacific seems to be gaining while Europe stalls, so the same drift is evident between central and South America and North America. While the former gained 11 banks over the year to move from 62 to 73, the latter lost 12 banks falling from 179 to 167.

When considering capital, however, the differences between North America and its southern neighbours present an alternative story. North America did indeed fall by 0.84 of a percentage point, while central and South America increased by 0.27 percentage points. But these changes still only give central and South America a meagre 3.3% share of the global total, whereas North America’s share is 20.34%. Clearly, central and South America’s banks would have to grow phenomenally to pose a threat to North America's total.

The other emerging market regions – Africa, central and eastern Europe and the Middle East – have all added banks and capital (except for the Middle East, whose capital fell by 0.04 percentage points), yet they remain small in global terms. Africa’s share of Tier 1 is 1.04% with 35 banks, central and eastern Europe has a 2.07% share with 52 banks, and the Middle East's share is 3.69% with 92 banks.

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