Their positions in the global Top 1000 ranking have, however, slightly changed. Despite increasing its Tier 1 capital to almost $88bn from $74.4bn in the 2006 ranking, HSBC returned to third position in the global ranking, the same position that it held in 2005, after it had stepped up to second place last year.
Crédit Agricole’s stronger Tier 1 capital, which rose dramatically from $60.6bn to almost $85bn, pushed the bank up two positions in the global ranking, from sixth place in 2006 to fourth place this year. The French bank also closed the gap on HSBC in the global ranking.
Royal Bank of Scotland’s Tier 1 capital increase, on the other hand, was not enough to sustain the bank in seventh position and the Scottish lender moved back to eighth place in the Top 1000 listing.
The big mover in this year’s ranking was Paris-based BNP Paribas, following its acquisition of Italy’s BNL. The French bank almost doubled its Tier 1 capital and has moved up from 24th place to 11th place in the Top 1000, and into fifth place in the Western Europe Top 25 listing, up from 13th last year.
UniCredit, last year’s big mover and a bank that is continuously involved in acquisitions activities, lost ground to London-based Barclays Bank, which moved up one place from last year’s Top 25 Western Europe ranking. Barclays also overtook HBOS in its run to sixth place.
Another Italian bank lost ground and did not make it into the Top 25 banks in Western Europe. Banca Intesa, in 21st place last year, recently merged with San Paolo IMI, and its $15,589bn Tier 1 capital put it in 46th position in the global ranking, down from 34th last year.
One bank’s jump out of the Top 25 Western Europe ranking is another bank’s jump in. Denmark’s Danske Bank just made the cut in 25th place with its $17bn in Tier 1 capital.
It might not surprise many that Dutch ABN AMRO – which is currently the object of a takeover battle between Barclays Bank and a consortium formed by RBS, Santander and Fortis that might lead to the bank being broken up – is the only lender in the ranking with a decrease (although minimal) in Tier 1 capital, from $32.3bn last year to $31.2bn this year.TOP 25: WESTERN EUROPE ($M)
