It has been almost two decades since British economist Jim O’Neill, then employed by Goldman Sachs, first coined the term ‘BRIC economies’, referring to Brazil, Russia, India and China. In his seminal 2001 paper, ‘Building better global economic BRICs’, he outlined the important role that these emerging market economies were expected to play on the global stage. In 2010, South Africa also became an accepted part of the grouping.
Since that time, we have charted the progress of those five countries’ banks via The Banker’s annual Top 1000 World Banks ranking. For instance, in 2001 there was just one Chinese bank, ICBC, in the top 10, ranked in seventh place. In our 2019 ranking there are four Chinese banks in the top 10 and they hold the highest four positions. BRICS banks also now make up one-fifth of our Top 1000 rankings, with 200 banks in the list, compared with just 57 in 2001.
