In case you were wondering…the biggest bank in the world is now ICBC of China (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China). They have just over US$160trillion of Tier1 capital. They have 408,000 employees and serve over 4m corporate clients and 282m consumers from 16,648 outlets across China.
The total capital for the top 25 banks has increase 10.8%, mostly thanks to the growth of the Chinese banks (ICBC, China Construction Bank, Bank of Communications). Overall, pre-tax profits for the top 1000 in 2013 increased by 6.7%, compared with a decline of 1% the previous year. Things are a bit more dire in Europe, as you’d expect, dear reader. We see an aggregate lose of $49bn for the single currency area, compared with a profit of $2.1bn last year. UK centered banks were profitable but suffered a significant decline from $32.9b to just $19.6b. So…the portion of global profits that sit in western europe is now just 1.59%, the lowest level since 2008. Asia Pacific is about 56.7%, by comparison. wow.
For more and more interesting detail, have a look at http://www.thebanker.com/Banker-Data/Banker-Rankings/Top-1000-World-Banks-2013.
