Inclusion has become a key word in bankers’ vocabulary – all lenders are keen to parade their latest initiatives to reach those outside the financial system. The Banker values inclusion too in the sense that a continuous effort is made to ensure that the number of lenders captured by our research is wider and more meaningful every year.
The list of new arrivals in The Banker's Top 1000 World Banks ranking includes UK mutuals, which were added to the research universe, as well as banks that have made it into the Top 1000 for the first time due to pure growth, be it organic or though mergers.
Not surprisingly, the Spanish market has provided a few new names as many of its savings banks, or cajas, were forced to join forces (and balance sheets) after some loans made during the country’s property and construction boom went bad.
Banco Financiero y de Ahorros is our largest new arrival and appears in third place in the Spanish ranking and 50th in the global listing. The group is the result of the merger of seven institutions, including Caja Madrid which was in fourth position in last year’s country table, and has a Tier 1 capital of almost $24bn and assets of just under $44bn. After being officially formed in December 2010, the lender closed its books with $670m of pre-tax profits.
With the merger of Fortis and ABN Amro Holdings completed, ABN Amro Group also makes an entrance in the listings with a Tier 1 capital of $19.8bn. The merger resulted from the Dutch bank’s takeover in 2007 by a consortium comprising Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Fortis, which ran into trouble for Fortis and RBS.
More and more Chinese lenders are also on The Banker's radar and this year’s total of new arrivals is 20 – the highest number from a single country – beats the US, with 18, into second place.
