Some of the banks that were caught up in the eurozone crisis and had become insolvent – and thus had dropped out of The Banker’s Top 1000 rankings in recent years – have now returned after being recapitalised.
Philip Alexander reports on the full results of The Banker’s Top 1000 World Banks ranking 2014, in the story Top 1000 World Banks 2014: Back on track?
Two such examples, Greece’s Attica Bank and Portugal’s Banco Finantia, are in this year’s new arrivals table because they have been recapitalised. And Bank of Cyprus, which resolved its crisis with a depositor bail-in, now has a capitalisation level that puts it at 291st in the Top 1000 rankings.
With a Tier 1 capital of $3.15bn, Bank of Cyprus ranks fifth in the new arrivals and trails behind three Chinese banks and one from the Netherlands. Like last year’s ranking, the new arrivals table is topped by a Chinese bank. And, as is typical with Chinese banks in these rankings, the numbers are big. The highest new entrant is Postal Savings Bank of China, which has jumped straight in at a world ranking of 63, with a Tier 1 capital of $22.98bn. By comparison, last year’s highest new entrant was Ping An Bank, which had a Tier 1 capital of $12.23bn and was ranked 97th in the world.
The other two Chinese banks in the top five are Evergrowing Bank, which ranks second in the new arrivals table with a Tier 1 capital of $5.18bn, and Chengdu Rural Commercial Bank, in fourth place with a Tier 1 capital of $3.3bn.
Unlike in the 2013 ranking, China features prominently in the rest of the new arrivals table. Out of 52 new entrants, 19 are from China. In last year’s rankings of new entrants, it was banks from Latin America that stood out, with 10 of the 36 new entrants coming from the region. Last year’s new entrants were split into two camps, where the banks had either newly arrived in the rankings because of organic growth in emerging markets, or were present because of merger and acquisitions that had taken place in developed markets. This year’s new entrants are defined by the European recapitalisations as well as strong growth in China. Some banks, such as Leshan City Commercial Bank, Tinkoff Credit Systems and Sterling Bancorp, have grown their way into the rankings, while for others, this is the first year for them to report figures that can be included in the Top 1000 rankings.
For example, while familiar names in the UK, this is the first year that Virgin Money Group and Tesco Bank have reported figures that can be included in the Top 1000 rankings. In a sign of the competitive nature of the UK market, these new entrants come into the Top 1000 rankings at 466th and 481st, with Tier 1 capital of $1.65bn and $1.54bn, respectively.
