Nedbank wins the best digital bank in Africa award for the second year in a row, courtesy of its push to reform and re-engineer its IT system, with the aim of cutting costs, attracting new business and favouring an approach that focuses on evolution rather than revolution.

Morocco-based Bank of Africa boasts a long and storied history as a leading lender to regional small and medium-sized enterprises. Last year, it secured a €50 million credit line from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to increase financing for SMEs across the continent.

Led by its head of wealth and investment Jacques Els, Standard Bank Wealth & Investment is a private-banking powerhouse in Africa.

Societe Generale’s global reputation as a driver of green and sustainable principles and investment, plus its long presence across Africa, combine to make the Paris-based lender a clear winner of this award on the continent.

Citi stands head and shoulders above its rivals in this category. The products it generates are designed to help day-to-day business for all its clients, be they global corporates working in and across Africa, or African firms scaling up their regional and international presence.

Getting M&A right in Africa is not easy – big-ticket transactions are rare, and deal flow tends to come in fits and starts – but Standard Bank has got it down to a fine art.

In a year (very) short on equity capital markets activity, it was in the debt and the loan market that Standard Bank shone brightest in 2023.

Equity Bank Kenya claims its mission is to empower clients and stakeholders, both socially and economically.

There are many reasons why Citi wins this year’s award for Asia’s best digital bank. Above all, the bank has no peer when it comes to investing year after year in cutting-edge digital solutions that benefit all of its clients.

Singapore’s big lenders tend to dominate banking for small and medium-sized enterprises in Asia, and this year is no exception, with UOB beating its domestic rivals to this award.

Yet again, DBS stands head and shoulders above the field in Asian wealth management.

HSBC is a powerhouse in sustainable finance in Asia: a multiple winner of this award and for good reason.

HSBC was the standout candidate in this award this year, dominating transaction banking in Asia.

Once again, Morgan Stanley is Asia’s best bank for advisory. The investment bank was the undisputed leader in region-wide advisory during the awards period, notching $172 billion in completed and $117 billion in announced transactions.

‘Being there’ is one of Citi’s many skills. It is always there for clients: underwriting stock offerings, printing bonds and taking the lead on bridge loans to support complex acquisitions.

There is so much to like about Sampath Bank’s approach to corporate responsibility. The Sri Lankan bank spent Rs91.3 million ($300,000) on all corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in 2023. That is small compared to the sums lavished on the space by bigger lenders. Yet the bank, which allocates 1% of net profit to projects that further environmental and social sustainability, manages to squeeze so much out of what it has to give.

All banks invest heavily in their digital products and services, but the return on that investment can vary widely.

Banking small and medium-sized companies across central and eastern Europe has become intensely competitive for the regional banks. Even amid the anaemic economic growth of last year, competition to grow the SME client base remained high as banks sought to expand their market share and boost assets.

Under group chief executive Andrea Orcel, UniCredit has reaffirmed its commitment to central and eastern Europe – highlighted by its announcement of the €300 million purchase of Alpha Bank Romania, part of a deal that also involved it taking a stake in the Athens-based group.

For many banks, sustainable finance is about more than just finance, it is about the quality of advice they provide and what they themselves are doing to be more sustainable.

Transaction services are a vital part of UniCredit’s rationale as a pan-European bank, and its leadership in this area is particularly evident in central and eastern Europe, where the bank’s regional head of transactions and payments is Riccardo Madinelli.

In 2023, central and eastern Europe’s M&A markets held up relatively well, with a total deal value of more than $30 billion according to Dealogic. Lazard, CEE’s best bank for advisory, was involved in many of the most important advisory situations in the region.

It is not normally thought of as one of the banks with a large stronghold on central and eastern Europe. Nevertheless, BNP Paribas still owns relatively large banks in what are, in effect after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the region’s two biggest markets in terms of banking: Poland and Turkey.

There are many ways in which banks can demonstrate their commitment to social responsibility and some come amid the most challenging times. The devastating earthquake in southern Turkey at the beginning of last year triggered an immediate response in support for the affected communities from the country’s corporate and banking sectors.

Brazil’s Nubank is the momentum story in global banking. In 2023, the bank added 19 million clients (to a total of 93.9 million), and it now can claim to bank 53% of the adult population of Brazil. It is also now seeing a positive operating leverage effect from the growth in its client base. In the fourth quarter of 2023, it recorded revenue of $2.4 billion (Nubank is listed on the NYSE and all its earnings are reported in dollars), which was up 57% on an annual basis. Net income jumped 489% to $360.9 million, with a return on equity of 23%.

There is a new force in small and medium-sized enterprise banking in Latin America and that is BTG Pactual. The bank is renowned for forensically analyzing new segments before entering and then aggressively pursuing what it has identified as specific opportunities and market innovations.

Banco Santander’s wealth management proposition has been resonating in Latin America in recent years. It has been one of the big engines of growth for Santander’s wealth management and insurance division in 2023, which contributed €3.3 billion in profit to the group, up 21% year on year. The bank’s strong regional footprint – as well as its presence in the US and Europe – gives it a perfect competitive proposition for wealthy Latin Americans, who are increasingly interested in diversifying their portfolio into international assets and currencies.

BNP Paribas has enviable sustainable finance credentials globally, but Latin America has become a particular area of strength for the French bank. In 2023, it led on some truly landmark transactions for clients throughout the region and can claim to be leading the evolution of sustainable finance in Latin America.

Nothing shows BBVA’s ability to harness what was once viewed as a disparate set of national banks around Latin America into a cohesive, integrated banking institution better than the success of its transaction services business.

With volumes in the capital markets subdued in 2023, there was increased client interest in private markets and M&A transactions. BofA Securities – led by Augusto Urmeneta, president of Bank of America for Latin America and head of Latin America global corporate and investment banking – embraced this challenge and helped clients tap alternative sources of liquidity. M&A was an important strategic option for many companies and BofA’s deal list featured 26 clients in five countries with both cross-border and domestic transactions, which accounted for a 9.5% market share in terms of fee revenues ($52.2 million).

Banco Santander CIB’s steady progress in Brazil – by far Latin America’s biggest market for financing – coincided with a greater emphasis on local markets financing in 2023. The bank’s sweet spot, straddling local and international debt capital markets, as well as loan financing, meant that it had a very strong year across various debt segments. According to Dealogic, Santander CIB – which is led in the region by Rafael Noya, global head of global debt financing – was the leading underwriter of domestic DCM throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, helped by a second place in Brazil, where it took a 9% share of local issuance. Santander’s local strength was also supported by a strong showing in international DCM.

Banreservas’ president Samuel Pereyra would argue that as a state-owned bank, all of its activities are led by a sense of corporate responsibility. Its loan portfolios are directed towards providing credit to industries targeted as crucial for the Dominican economy’s growth and its recent international expansion has been developed to facilitate financing flows between the country and its large international diaspora.

The economies of central America have been growing rapidly since the end of the pandemic. Some of this is the natural rebound of economic activity among countries that have outsized tourist sectors; and increased spending in this sector is one of the leading themes of the past couple of years.

Until recently investment banking in central America and the Caribbean was about having the best debt offering. The few international debt capital market mandates were obviously crucial to gain this credibility, but a presence in dollar and local-currency loans was also critical. Today it’s more complicated. The equity capital market still doesn’t really feature, but sustainable finance is crucial to the region. Moreover, the growing cross-border presence of many companies active in these countries means that transaction and treasury services are now areas of true competitive differentiation.

Emirates NBD Private Banking has a proven track record across wealth management in the Middle East. The Dubai-based firm scooped several wins at this year’s Euromoney private banking awards across global wealth management.

In the face of increasing competition among regional and global banks, HSBC has again demonstrated its financing strength and expertise in the Middle East across the breadth of markets, sectors and geographies it is a leader in.

If you visit the website of National Bank of Bahrain (NBB), it doesn’t take long to recognise that it takes corporate responsibility seriously.

As more banks in the Middle East invest in their digital transformations, the largest banks in the region are competing to develop new digital products and services.

The provision of transaction services in the Middle East has become one of the most fiercely competitive parts of the market, largely concentrated around banks’ ability to support local and regional champions as well as blue-chip multinationals operating in the region.

Last year was an important one for sustainable finance in the Middle East. Dubai hosted the COP28 conference, following on from Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt in 2022. This has well and truly put the spotlight on sustainable finance for banks, corporates and sovereigns in the region.

If there were two areas for any investment bank’s Middle East advisory team to specialise in and prove all-round excellence in last year, they were the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and outbound transactions. JPMorgan excelled on both counts.

Emirates NBD has successfully exported its small and medium-sized business banking operations from the UAE to its other core markets of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, creating a regional SME banking champion.

North America’s Best Digital Bank: Bank of America

Life for small and medium-sized enterprises is rarely comfortable. Even when your business is faring well, the capricious nature of policymakers and markets can upend carefully laid plans.

As in so many other areas of the bank’s franchise, JPMorgan’s wealth management performance in 2023 was a good illustration of the unique qualities of the US’s preeminent banking institution. It is North America’s best bank for wealth management.

Nearly all banks today make claims to be helping to save the planet in one way or another. One that has consistently done more than most when it comes to shifting the balance within the financial services industry is Bank of America, and it wins the award for North America’s best bank for sustainable finance.

Transaction banking clients faced many challenges in 2023, mostly as a result of the rapidly shifting interest rate environment. That made it vital to have a banking partner that could supply reliable advice on liquidity management.

Goldman Sachs has been the preeminent mergers and acquisitions advisory firm for almost as long as the business has existed in its modern form. Its performance in the difficult environment of 2023 showed how resilient its franchise is, and it once again wins the award for North America’s best bank for advisory.

Some capital markets franchises make their name for sheer volume, topping the deal rankings by simply being everywhere. Others take a different tack, picking spots where they know they excel and then doing so. For yet again being on some of the most challenging and intellectually demanding deals in the review period, Morgan Stanley is North America’s best bank for financing.

Scotiabank has long championed a variety of environmental, social and governance (ESG) priorities in its business and considers walking the talk to be crucial in its home region. For its continued commitment to doing things right, Scotiabank is North America’s best bank for corporate responsibility.

Often this award goes to the bank that has done a particularly good job of providing useful digital features through a smartphone app to retail customers. This year we recognize a wholesale bank, most renowned for the technology behind its CashPro offering for payments, receivables, liquidity and FX management. Bank of America is western Europe’s best digital bank.

It is hardly surprising that an Italian bank should excel at lending to small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the backbone of the industrial strategy of the country. SMEs are at the heart of UniCredit’s UniCredit per l’Italia strategy, which has seen a further €10 billion of support extended to individuals and corporates this year – including a special assistance package for Emilia Romagna in May in response to widespread flooding.

BNP Paribas Wealth Management operates across 17 countries, serving a client base of entrepreneurs, family offices and high net-worth individuals.

Since its foundation in 1885 as a cooperative and mutual bank, social usefulness has been central to Crédit Agricole’s business model. It was an early pioneer of sustainable finance. It was one of the first banks to commit to exiting the thermal coal industry by 2030 in OECD countries and by 2040 for the rest of the world.

HSBC wins the award for western Europe’s best bank for transaction services thanks to the delivery of an impressive range of services to corporate treasurers that the bank has developed over years of heavy investment.

The M&A advisory rankings for 2023 tell a familiar story in western Europe. JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs rank top both by revenue and by deal value. But Rothschild & Co advised on almost twice as many transactions as either of the bulge bracket pair and it maintained its third place in the revenue league table ahead even of Morgan Stanley.

As the equity capital markets remained sluggish across Europe last year, financing activity was all about debt. So, it is perhaps no surprise that western Europe’s best bank for financing this year is the one that dominated the debt capital markets league tables working on 509 deals worth $128 billion equivalent for a 7% market share: BNP Paribas. Even in ECM, the French firm ranked number five behind sector leaders BofA Securities and Goldman Sachs.

Most banks focus their corporate responsibility agendas on environmental, social and governance metrics and the drive to net zero, as well as on diversity and inclusion in terms of their customers and their own workforces. Banco Santander, western Europe’s best bank for corporate responsibility, has for many years looked beyond these core aspects of responsibility and found other ways to contribute to society.