Thirteen Nigerian banks, including Zenith Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank and FirstBank, have been listed among the Leading 1000 Global Banks as published by The Banker magazine of the Financial Times Group in its 2014 edition.
The other banks that made the ranking based on Tier-1 capital are Access Bank, United Bank for Africa, Fidelity Bank, Ecobank Nigeria, Skye Bank, First City Monument Bank, Diamond Bank, Stanbic IBTC Holdings, Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria and Union Bank of Nigeria.
The report, which was released weekend, said banks in the world, for the first time since the global financial crisis, returned profit of $920 billion which is 23 per cent more than their previous peak of $786 billion achieved in 2007 before the financial crisis.
The report underlines Nigeria’s financial sector’s leading position in Africa as no other African country has up to 13 banks in the Top 1000 World listing of banks.
According to the report, Zenith Bank ranked top in Nigeria at 293 as Guaranty Trust is on number 415, FirstBank on number 424, Access Bank 532, United Bank for Africa ranked 539 and Fidelity 622.
The report said profit on capital of three Nigerian banks that are not foreign-owned subsidiaries increased. These are FirstBank, that has its profit on capital increased to 25.32 per cent from 25.13 per cent; Access Bank, from 21.19 per cent to 21.24 per cent and First City Monument Bank, 15.77 per cent from 15.07 per cent.
Editor of the magazine, Brain Caplen, noted that the 23 per cent increase in profit of global banks from 2007 “is a good news but the better news is that capital has also increased at a reasonable pace whereas assets have stayed flat. This means that returns on capital are only slightly improved but the hope is that this upturn is more sustainable than the last one.”
Caplen disclosed that a large proportion of the profit is from China— about 32 per cent of the total which is more than the next three highest profit countries of USA, Japan and Canada combined.
Of the 25 top banks in Africa from the ranking, the highest of eight is from Nigeria, the largest economy in the continent while the United Bank for Africa is the only Nigerian bank in the top 10 highest movers in Africa.
In all, Africa has 31 banks in the Top 1000 World Banks 2014 with Nigeria having 13 representing 41.94 per cent. The 31 African banks in the ranking are from nine countries: Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Angola, Gabon, Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco and Togo.
Globally, Senior Editor of the magazine, Philip Alexander, stressed that banks in this 2014 ranking “are stronger than ever” as “the level of capital held by banks in this ranking continues to accelerate, with the minimum Tier 1 capital required to enter the Top 1000 World Banks now fast approaching $400 million. This has almost doubled since the 2005 ranking,” he added.
The Banker, a publication of Financial Times Newspaper which is regarded as the most influential newspaper in the world, is a global financial intelligence magazine published since 1926. It is the definitive publication that provides guide to bank ratings and analysis globally and the definitive reference on international banking for finance experts, governments, chief finance officers, CEOs, Central Bank Governors, Finance Ministers, and other decision makers globally.
According to The Global Capital Markets Surveys (GCMS), the only independent media benchmarking study available in the capital markets industry and provides insight into who reads what at the world’s financial institutions, among monthly finance titles globally, The Banker is number one monthly finance title read globally, in capital markets; Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region; emerging markets and bank as well as financial institutions in the world.
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