The world's biggest banks



Jul 12th 2007
From The Economist print edition

Bank of America was the biggest bank in the world last year, according to The Banker
magazine, which ranked the top 1,000 banks on the basis of their
holdings of tier-one capital. This is a bank's core reserve capital,
comprising equity, disclosed reserves and retained earnings. Banks from
emerging markets, including Brazil, India and Russia, prospered. Two
Chinese banks (ICBC and Bank of China) made
the top ten list for the first time. China also produced the highest
number of new arrivals in the top 1,000 (seven). UBS
was the biggest bank if total assets are taken as the measure, and
Wintrust Financial earned the highest return on capital last year. But
neither made the top ten for the tier-one list.

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