HSBC increased its Tier 1 capital from $67.3bn to $74.4bn, allowing it to climb from third to second place in the overall Top 1000 and comfortably retain its top billing in the 25. Crédit Agricole held on to second place in the 25 despite seeing its Tier 1 capital drop from $63.4bn to $60.6bn.
Royal Bank of Scotland closed the gap on Crédit Agricole with an increase in Tier 1 capital from $43.8bn to $48.6bn but still remained firmly in third place. Interestingly, the two banks are also only one rank apart in the Top 1000, where they place sixth and seventh.
The big mover in the listing is UniCredit of Italy. Through its acquisition of HVB of Austria, UniCredit saw a massive increase in its Tier 1 capital from $16.2bn to $34bn, which saw it shoot up the chart from 23rd position to sixth, just behind HBOS and slightly ahead of Barclays Bank, both of the UK.
UK banks dominate the rankings, holding four of the top seven places in addition to Lloyds TSB, which comes in at 18th.
Spanish leader Santander Central Hispano places fourth with Tier 1 capital of $38.4bn (up from sixth last year) and way ahead of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), which lists at 19th with Tier 1 capital of $19.2bn, very similar to its position last year: $20bn of Tier 1 capital which won it 20th place.
With the UniCredit acquisition, Germany has lost HVB from the table but still has two players in the Top 25 with Commerzbank standing at 23rd with Tier 1 capital of $14.3bn. Deutsche Bank holds 12th position as it did last year on almost exactly the same capital – $25.8bn.
Apart from the larger Crédit Agricole and the smaller Groupe Banques Populaires, four of the six French banks are remarkably similar in size, placing 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th, with Tier 1 ranging from $22.4bn to $25.1bn.
Bottom of the ranking is Sweden’s Nordea, which was not in last year’s ranking. It notched up $13.55bn of Tier 1 capital.
The 286 banks from the EU25 in the Top 1000 comprise 40.7% of total Tier 1 capital, 50.7% of assets and 37.4% of profits.
