South African Banks Retain Top Position in Africa, low in Global Standing – The Banker

South African Banks have retained top position in Africa but low in global standing according to the Banker, the British international financial affairs’ publication owned by The Financial Times Ltd.

This is shown in its recently published annual ranking of the world’s 1,000 biggest banks, the financial publication which comprised of major South African financial institutions, and how they performed over the last 12 months.

Of the top 10 African banks by Tier 1 capital, South Africa’s Standard Bank retains the top spot in the 2019 rankings with $9.8 billion.

This represented a 3.7% fall on the bank’s Tier 1 capital in the 2018 rankings, The Banker said, with its position in the global table down to 149th, from 145th.

FirstRand retained its second position in the Africa table (and its 173rd position in the global rankings) despite a 2.3% drop in Tier 1 capital during the review period.

Absa and Nedbank retained their respective third and fourth positions in the Africa rankings, despite both experiencing double-digit falls in their Tier 1 capital positions over the period.

Absa fell 14 places to 184th in 2019’s global ranking, with Nedbank down 23 places to 240th.

Investec is the only other South African bank listed in the African top 10, ranking 375th globally. The other top African banks include two from Egypt (National Bank of Egypt and Banque Misr), two from Morocco, Groupe Banques Populaire and Attijarwafa Bank and one from Nigeria, Zenith Bank.

Capitec ranked 18th overall, and showed some growth in its Tier 1 Capital over the past year, recording a 1.7% improvement.

African Bank was included in the 2019 top 25 for Africa at 25th place (885th overall), with Tier 1 Capital recorded at $682 million.

The rankings reveal that South African banks continue to stay atop others in Africa, but are disadvantaged by local economic challenges which made them fall short in the global rankings. One of such was when South Africa had a technical recession, as well as one of the biggest quarterly drops in economic growth in over a decade which pulled South African banks down the global rankings though the continent has seen many bright spots of improved performance on the overall performance index.

The biggest banks in South Africa

 Global banks

As for the global banks, there has been little change in the last one year, with Chinese banks retaining their positions on top in terms of Tier 1 Capiteal – however, American banks are more efficient, The Banker noted.

bally, banks had their best year ever despite all the challenges of tighter regulation, higher capital requirements, competition from fintechs and low interest rates in Europe and the US,” The Banker said.

Total pre-tax profits for the Top 1000 World Banks were $1,135 billion – more than 10 times higher than back in 2009 when the financial crisis hit results.

These are the 10 biggest banks in the world:

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