Best Bank: HDFC Bank

Best Bank: HBL

First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) is yet again the deserved winner of the award for the Middle East’s best bank for financing.

Goldman Sachs had a knockout year in Africa. The firm has invested heavily in the region, with a clear focus on a few core markets, notably South Africa, where it has moved to a larger office in Johannesburg and added foreign-exchange and fixed-income products that target corporate and institutional investors. In 2019, it joined forces with Investec to provide domestic equity trading services. A year later, it secured a licence to trade futures from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

Citi’s strength across the capital markets, allied to an ability to put its balance sheet to good use with key clients, always put it in contention for the award for Africa’s best bank for financing.

Equity Bank Kenya has been closely engaged in corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives since its launch in 1984. The award for Africa’s best bank for corporate responsibility this year is recognition of its position as a leader in the field.

Even as some wealth managers consolidate their regional presence, focusing on one or two core markets, UBS continues to expand across the Middle East, adding relationship managers and new offices. The result is a growing business and product range attracting more new wealthy clients.

HSBC has dominated the environmental, social and governance (ESG) space for many years, and nowhere is that more evident than in the Middle East. There are many reasons why it deserves to be named the region’s best bank for sustainable finance.

Citi’s commitment to its customers, to innovation and to unveiling new products that adapt to the shifting needs and expectations of corporates and regulators put it easily ahead of its rivals this year.

Best Bank: Banco Angolano de InvestimentosBest Investment Bank: Standard Bank Angola

Mashreq Bank may not be the Middle East’s largest lender, but it is the region’s most digitally innovative and influential financial institution. Its digital journey was already well advanced when Ahmed Abdelaal was named chief executive in late 2019, but since then innovation has gone into overdrive.

Ecobank Transnational brands itself as a pan-African lender – and such it is. Founded in 1985, it now serves millions of customers across 33 sub-Saharan African markets. And with so many multinational banks having made their excuses and departed, it is now arguably more important and integral to the region’s smaller businesses than ever before.

M&A in Africa last year was the classic one-trick pony, in that all the action took place in a single market, South Africa. Despite that, the competition for this award was fierce. It came down to a straight fight between Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, with the former walking away with the prize in yet another impressive year.

The banks in each market that have excelled across a range of core banking activities over the past 12 months.

It can at times feel hard to find worthy causes and initiatives that National Bank of Bahrain (NBB) doesn’t foster and fund.

No other private bank in Africa can compete with Standard Bank, the region’s largest by assets and earnings. The Johannesburg-based lender has a dedicated on-the-ground wealth management presence in 15 countries, including Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya, employing 449 industry professionals.

Egypt’s Commercial International Bank (CIB) has emerged as not only a very good bank for small and medium-sized enterprises but also a key innovator in a sometimes overlooked area of finance.

It has been a busy few years for First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB). A change at the top of the institution last year saw Hana Al Rostamani ascend to the position of group chief executive, the first woman to lead the bank.

JPMorgan is the standout winner of the award for the region’s best bank for advisory. According to Dealogic data, the firm advised on 22 completed M&A transactions in the year to the end of March 2022 worth a total of $66.51 billion, giving it a 34.2% market share. No other investment bank came close in terms of either deal volume or deal count.

Societe Generale deserves the award for Africa’s best bank for sustainable finance on many levels. The French bank chooses its projects wisely, demonstrating an ability to marry quantity with quality. It works in lockstep with international and local partners, and with regional private and public-sector corporates, agencies and initiatives to achieve its ambitions.

Last year was one that saw HSBC in its best light in this region. The Middle East is not always an easy place in which to run a full-service investment bank. Some years are stellar; in others the well runs dry. But with energy prices up and governments committed to economic and financial diversification, there has never been a better time to be in the UK lender’s shoes.

Ecobank Transnational’s sheer weight of presence – it delivers banking services to 32 million people in 33 sub-Saharan African countries – could have been a hindrance, a geographical burden. Instead, it transformed into a positive, and the bank has done so in large part by drawing up an impressively coherent digital strategy.

Post-Barclays, Absa continues to expand its regional footprint, adding new services each year and doing the nuts and bolts of banking well. Given the central role that trade and the flow of cash play in the region, there are few more important awards than that for Africa’s best bank for transaction services – and Absa is a worthy winner.

The region's best banks, country by country

Ecobank Transnational ticks a lot of boxes. The Togo-headquartered bank is undeniably a true regional lender, with a presence in 33 sub-Saharan African markets, from the big (Nigeria, South Africa) to the tiny (São Tomé & Principe, Guinea-Bissau).

Best Investment Bank: Trigon

BNDES’s record profits in the first quarter of 2022 (up 32% over the first quarter of 2021 to R$12.9 billion) point to something transformational going on at the state-owned development bank. Led by president Gustavo Montezano since July 2019, BNDES also made R$34.1 billion ($6.68 billion) in 2021 – a record year and 65% above 2020.

One of the consequences of Citi’s withdrawal from local banking markets in Latin America is that the US bank is especially sensitive to any potential loss of market share in corporate debt financing in the affected countries.

BBVA has always prided itself as being an active community participant in the countries in which it operates in Latin America. However, the bank’s recent efforts to deepen the integration of its Latin American banks have increased the value of the combined efforts in this area.

UBS reported a record year for its wealth management business in Latin America last year as the Swiss bank married regional presence with a distinctive global client proposition.