The year 2013 was the year of capital and recapitalisations in western Europe. Of the top 25 banks, 18 increased their Tier 1 capital, while only one of the seven banks with lower capital than in 2013 did not fall in the rankings.
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?
The largest French bank, BNP Paribas, remains in the second position in the rankings with only marginally lower capital of $99.17bn.
HSBC keeps its top spot for the fourth year in a row in western Europe, following a 4.71% increase in Tier 1 capital to $158.16bn. Five of the top 25 western European banks are UK based, the country with the highest capital in the region, $499.5bn, followed by France with $366.1bn.
Barclays added some $12bn to its Tier 1 capital in 2014 and climbs three places to rank third in western Europe. Last year’s third positioned bank, RBS, drops three places, following a $5bn fall in capital and $14.6bn of pre-tax losses.
La Caixa Group is the new name for what The Banker included in last year's rankings as Caixabank. The group, which owns 60.5% of Caixabank, sees no change to its ranking but improves its capital position by 4.96%.
Nine out of the 10 highest movers in western Europe can be seen to be related to the impact from the eurozone crisis – the only odd one out is Tesco Bank, the financial offshoot of the UK retailer. The biggest change sees Bank of Cyprus, which improved its figure by 1888.23% on last year, following the bank’s bail-in and recapitalisation in mid-2013, which also makes it the second largest new entrant in western Europe on a Tier 1 basis.
Other ‘real’ Top 1000 newcomers, apart from Bank of Cyprus, are Attica Bank, Banco Finantia, Banca Generali and Banque de Commerce et de Placements.
