Swiss banks are again well down the list of the annual top world ranking banks. This year however Credit Suisse has caught the notice of the ranking jury.
Finance industry magazine «The Banker» talks of a «renaissance» after a decade of crisis management. Globally there has been a return to double-digit profit growth among some of the banks. The crisis-shaken European institutes especially are showing signs of improvement, the latest, and closely-watch ranking of the «Top 1,000 World Banks» (study behind paywall) notes in its 2018 publication.
The rankings, based on the banks' core capital ratio, shows only one European institute among the world’s 10 best banks. In this case it is British HSBC, though it is actually headquartered in Chinese Hong Kong. And it is the Chinese state banks which again dominate the latest rankings. ICBC, which last June also opened an office in Zurich, followed by the CCB, the Bank of China. J.P. Morgan, the biggest U.S. bank is only ranked at fifth (see table below).
Anglo-Chinese, French Lead
The western European banks may have improved their capitalization by an average 16.5 percent, but this doesn’t put most of them in the league of the big hitters. This includes UBS and Credit Suisse, who don’t even make it into the European top 10, which is led by HSBC and French rivals BNP Paribas and Crédit Agricole.
In the «The Banker», Credit Suisse is placed 14 on the European and 36 on the global list. UBS finds itself ranked 19 and 43 respectively.
More Accolades for Tidjane Thiam
Credit Suisse did however catch the eye of the jurors as one of those banks who achieved a significant swing to profit from previous losses. While the Swiss bank did post a loss of 2.1 billion francs last year, this was due to tax write-offs in the U.S.- the pre-tax profit reached 2.8 billion francs.
The ranking is a further laurel for CEO Tidjane Thiam. Only recently he was crowned «Banker of the year» by «Euromoney». However the biggest challenges still lie ahead: in the fall he faces an investor day, where the real assessment of his performance will be made.
