World's best banks 2001

Global Finance, Oct 2001 by Thurston, Charles W

Global Finance unveils its annual List of the World's Best global, regional and country banks; a group of over 80 eminent institutions.

The continuing waves of consolidation that are sweeping the global banking industry are leaving fewer, stronger, and better geographically positioned institutions, which we have profiled in this year's report on the World's Best Banks awards.

Beginning with the half dozen truly global banks that provide the best corporate, retail, private, asset management and custody services, Global Finance's editorial team also has selected the leading regional players in the world. From the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East and Africa, we have identified the best bank in 77 countries, drawing on a field of far more candidates.

In selecting these top banks, factors that were considered range from the quantitatively objective to the informed subjective. Among nominally objective criteria we considered such factors as growth in assets, prof itability, geographic reach, strategic relationships, new business development, and innovation in products. Subjective criteria included the reasoned opinions of equity analysts, credit rating analysts, banking consultants and others involved in the industry. The mix of these factors yields leading banks that may not be the largest, the oldest, or the most diversified in a given country or sector, but rather the best: the bank with which corporations around the world would be most likely to want to do business.

Still, seeking to narrow a wide field of banks down to a single choice is not easy in many cases. Winning banks from a host of countries which are featured in this annual selection change frequently. The best regional and global banks tend to change less often, given the dominance and dedication of those institutions to their customers. Mavericks, nonetheless, are recognized where they have successfully challenged an incumbent player, even if that success lasts only for a year or so. And as the World's Best Banks continue to forge more numerous and intricate ties, they are also diversifying into an increasingly vast array of nonbank financial services and products.

In this month's feature, we have included the Best Emerging Market Banks, first identified in our May issue, along with the best banks in developed countries. We also have repeated the listing of the World's Best Internet Banks, from our August issue, to provide an overview of the World's Best Banks from a variety of perspectives.

-Charles W Thurston, with Ernest McCrary, Mark Johnson, Shirley Savage, and Jan Alexander.

BEST GLOBAL BANKS

BEST CORPORATE BANK J.P. MORGAN CHASE

President and CEO: William B. Harrison Jr Chase Manhattan was the bank that offered safety and security to its corporate clients and J.P Morgan the venerable investment house that financed much of America's early industrial growth. But growing out of the merger of the two is a mega wholesale bank with a strong foothold in such high-risk areas as Asia and high technology.Although the capital demands of building a new banking platform have put a dent in this year's income, the reinvented institution is poised to create the top global equity deals for the next wave of economic growth, with the help of assets and connections that Chase Manhattan acquired with the purchases of British investment bank Robert Fleming Holdings, a top money manager in Asia; San Francisco-based Hambrecht & Quist, which bankrolled many players in the technology boom; and the Beacon Group.

The firm now known as J.P Morgan Chase has assets of more than $715 billion and serves more than 5,000 corporate clients all over North America, Europe,Asia, and LatinAmerica. J.P Morgan Chase's management expects the merger to save $2 billion in costs. The new bank's most innovative line of business to date is the so-called e-business transformation unit, LabMorgan NetworksTM, which will link key technology industry leaders with portfolio companies as a way of increasing cost efficiencies while speeding new products to market.

www.jpmorganchase.com

BEST CONSUMER BANK CITIBANK

Chairman and CEO: Victor J. Menezes

It's hard to go anywhere in the world without finding a Citibank branch. The bank has a network of ATMs in places where people are likely to need cash, including airports and service chains such as Blockbuster and Kinko's. The global consumer banking division is one of proud parent Citigroup's fastest-growing segments, with revenues that grew 20% in the first half of 2001.The group is aggressively scoping out new opportunities to expand the consumer bank franchise within and beyond the 57 countries in which it currently operates. Through no less than 10 strategically aimed acquisitions last year, Citigroup increased its total credit card account base to 100 million. Deeper penetration of the European market will come with the recent $1.6 billion acquisition of European American Bank (EAB) from ABN-AMRO. A purchase of Grupo Financier Banamex-Accival for $12.5 billion has cemented Citibank's status as a serious force in Mexico.