Euromoney has named Bank of America the World’s Best Bank in its Awards for Excellence 2022, which were announced at a ceremony that took place in London on the evening of July 13.
In an increasingly volatile and unpredictable operating environment, Euromoney recognised Bank of America’s performance not only in retail banking, loan growth, capital markets trading and wealth management, but also its behaviour as a corporate citizen.
“Bank of America is the most prominent example of stakeholder capitalism in operation at a leading global bank,” Euromoney states. “It doesn’t gouge customers, for example on overdraft fees. It doesn’t lend money at high initial fees to those who likely won’t be able to pay it back and so may have to surrender their assets. And it looks after staff.
“What matters most for investors in bank equity is that this works,” the magazine emphasises. “Bank of America’s costs are not inflating.”
The magazine recognises the bank’s investment in technology, which has led to cutting-edge digital offerings both for retail customers and corporations, such as CashPro, its market-leading payments and transaction services product.
“The bank measures digital adoption and engagement in many ways,” it says. “When it reported strong results for the first quarter of 2022, including a 15.5% return on tangible common equity, Bank of America disclosed that, for the first time, digital sales accounted for just over half of all sales and that these have doubled since 2019.”
Goldman Sachs was named the World’s Best Investment Bank for 2022 at the same event.
“A period of record-breaking capital markets activity has translated into both record revenues and profits from investment banking at Goldman Sachs in 2021,” the magazine observes. “And while all its leading competitors also did well, Goldman took a bigger share of the largest slices of a growing pie.”
With combined advisory, underwriting and lending revenues of $14.9 billion and operating expenses of just $6.7 billion, the investment banking division reported a remarkable full-year return on average common equity of 65% for 2021.
“The 12 months to the end of the first quarter of 2022 show that it has been getting the big calls right,” Euromoney says. “For the best part of six years now, Goldman has been hiring bankers to deal with mid-market corporate clients – some of them publicly quoted, many privately owned by families or private equity sponsors. It was a year of record M&A volume, dominated by large numbers of mid-size deals rather than by mega transactions worth $20 billion or more. Goldman did around 600 deals worth $500 million and over, an all-time record.”
Euromoney examined the turnaround at Hamburg Commercial Bank, formerly HSH Nordbank, in its world’s best bank transformation category, stating: “Following its 2018 privatization and subsequent rebranding, by early 2022 Hamburg Commercial Bank could boast some of the best financial metrics in banking in Germany – if not Europe – including a common equity tier-1 ratio of 28.9% and a 50% cost-to-income ratio in a country where 70% is normal.”
Several banks won multiple global categories in this year’s awards: BNP Paribas was named the World’s Best Bank for Markets, the World’s Best Bank for Sustainable Finance, the World’s Best Bank for Corporates and the World’s Best Bank for ESG Data & Technology; while Goldman Sachs also won the World’s Best Bank for Advisory and for FIG.
Citi was named the World’s Best Digital Bank, the World’s Best Bank for Securities Services and the World’s Best Bank for Diversity & Inclusion.
The global environmental, social and governance categories were again intensely competitive, and Societe Generale was named as having the World’s Best Bank Transition Strategy. The World’s Best Bank for Payments and Treasury is another fiercely contested award, which this year went to Bank of America for the second year in succession.
FIX Marketplace, Asia’s first fully digital and automated fixed-income new-issue execution platform, was named Financial Innovation of the Year for 2022.
About the Awards for Excellence
Euromoney’s Awards for Excellence were established in 1992 and were the first of their kind in the global banking industry. They remain the worldwide gold standard in this regard and are determined by an editorial panel of judges following a three-month research and interview process. This year, the magazine received a record number of pitches from banks across the globe for its country, regional and global awards categories.
