Awards for Excellence 1998: Best in the world

BEST BANK: Citibank

This may be the last year it is possible to give just one best bank award. Banking is changing so fast, and banks' strategies for coping are so different, that straightforward comparisons are becoming harder and harder to make.

Contenders for this award this year fall into four groups: those trying to become global providers of wholesale banking services; those trying to become global consumer banks; those with the infrastructure to offer operating and transaction services globally; and those aiming to create global asset-management businesses. Outside these groups are specialists - Bankers Trust and Nomura for example - and the national and regional institutions whose future looks less certain.

The leading wholesalers are Chase, Merrill Lynch the...