Standard Bank Wealth & Investment stands head and shoulders above the wealth management competition in Africa. The South African bank is a regional powerhouse in the sector, with private banking offices in 14 African markets, including Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana, as well as the whole of southern Africa.

Compared with European banks that have built African retail operations, Deutsche Bank might not be as well-known as an Africa-focused lender. But it has long had important corporate and investment banking operations on the continent. It is one of the largest correspondent banks for African financial institutions and in the previous decade it helped many African sovereigns issue debut international bonds.

Like most of South Africa’s big banks, Nedbank is on a mission to reform and re-engineer its IT system, using it to attract new business, cut costs and roll out new services.

No African lender can match Ecobank Transnational’s reach. The Togo-based financial institution is a worthy winner of this year’s award for Africa’s best bank for small and medium-sized enterprises – the second year in a row it has received the title.

For the second year in a row, Equity Bank is Africa’s best bank for corporate responsibility. Under the leadership of group CEO James Mwangi, Equity Bank continues to create shared value for clients and citizens across its banking business, as well as its foundation, which dates back to 2008.

Africa’s best bank for transaction services, Societe Generale operates in 19 countries in Africa, with 4.3 million clients, including 175,000 corporate clients. Its global transaction and payment services team is led by Alexandre Maymat.

Evidence of an ability to leverage networks across Africa and beyond has helped Citi win the title of Africa’s best bank for advisory this year. While the firm has a strong franchise in South Africa, the rest of the continent is now becoming more important as a growth market. This award is therefore largely thanks to the team led by chairman of investment banking for Middle East and Africa, Miguel Azevedo, and Claude-Stephanie Ngningha, Citi’s head of investment banking in Africa outside South Africa and Egypt.

A combination of rising interest rates, depreciating currencies and poor credit ratings make it difficult for African economies to tap into global financial markets to fund their sustainable transition. At the same time, the impacts of climate change are becoming increasingly severe across the continent.

It is no surprise that HSBC is Asia’s best bank for sustainable finance for the sixth year in a row. Across its commercial, retail, global banking, markets and securities, capital markets, trade finance and risk management teams, the lender has created an extensive sustainability knowledge base that few of its rivals can match.

Singapore is Asia’s leading private banking hub – and at the heart of that story is DBS, a bank that has remade itself over the past decade and a half into one of the world’s best wealth managers.

There is perhaps no other digital bank anywhere in the world like kakaobank. Many pure-play digital banks seem to have an in-built ceiling: at a specific point, organizational flaws appear, they cease adding new customers and start to appear more dysfunctional than disruptor.

UOB is as committed as ever to serving small and medium-sized enterprises in its home base of Singapore – where it reckons it banks one of every two SMEs – as it is to clients in key markets across the region. From mid-sized corporates on the fringes of requiring capital markets services, to micro-enterprises, clients have come to rely on it for funding, financial advice and best-in-class banking services.

It was ultra-competitive at the top of the M&A league tables in the review period. Goldman Sachs wins the award for Asia’s best bank for advisory this year because it was there on most of the big mergers and acquisitions. The bank advised on 76 deals in Asia Pacific in the 12 months to the end of March 2023, worth a total of $181.9 billion, according to Dealogic, for a 16.87% share of the market.

Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) is a worthy winner of this award. At the heart of the bank’s philanthropic efforts is its BPI Foundation, which touches the lives of more than one million financially under-served Filipinos in 75 of the country’s 81 provinces.

Citi takes everything it does seriously, but there is a special place in its collective consciousness for transaction services. This often-sprawling area of financial services, which chief executive Jane Fraser calls the crown jewel of the bank, is the beating heart of all Citi stands for.

Morgan Stanley is a powerhouse in financing. In Asia Pacific ex-China, the US bank helped to complete 42 equity capital markets deals – more than any other bank over the 12 months to the end of March 2023 – worth a total of $5.4 billion, according to Dealogic. And in debt capital markets, it completed 419 deals worth $46.2 billion.

Government clients and the reduced presence of international banks are typical features of finance in central and eastern Europe, and M&A is no exception. But the region is not beyond the reach of JPMorgan, central and eastern Europe’s best bank for advisory.

Even rivals recognize that OTP Bank has advanced strongly in digital banking recently, ensuring that its technology wins and retains customers in Hungary and across central and eastern Europe.

UniCredit has long been regarded as a leader in corporate banking in central and eastern Europe. Transaction services continues to be a vital part of this regional franchise under Riccardo Madinelli, head of transactions and payments for central and eastern Europe.

Last year, ING was the first bank in central and eastern Europe to stop providing dedicated finance to new upstream oil and gas fields, despite the fact that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatened energy supply on the continent. The Dutch lender remains the bank of choice for green or sustainability labelled deals in the region.

Good perceptions of corporate social responsibility have become ever more important for banks in central and eastern Europe since the start of the war in Ukraine.

Under chief executive Hakan Binbasgil, Akbank demonstrated an innovative and proactive approach to small and medium-sized enterprise banking during the awards period, despite the difficult operating environment in its home market of Turkey.

The past year has seen Societe Generale play a crucial role in central and eastern Europe’s financing markets, led by Philippe Madar, head of corporate coverage for Europe. It is top of Dealogic’s mandated lead arranger rankings for regional syndicated loans in the awards period. Its market share in loans was almost twice as high as the next ranked bank, and it was also involved in some of the key bond deals during the awards period.

Wealth management across central and eastern Europe is still in a state of flux, nearly 18 months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In that period, some lenders have pulled back from specific markets in the region; others have sought ways to cut costs by reducing their roster of senior private bankers.

This year’s winner of the award for Latin America’s best digital bank, Davivienda, has not just adopted the digital channels of new startup rivals but has gone further. The bank has embraced digital banking, blockchain adaptation, artificial intelligence and the metaverse. The result is an intriguing and compelling mix of upgraded old-bank processes through digital infrastructure and completely new business opportunities.

When financial analysts argue about whether economies of scale exist in cross border retail banking, they simply need to point to BAC International Bank (BAC). Led by Rodolfo Tabash, the bank is a big player in all the regional markets and, while these are small individually, together they total more than 50 million people.

It is not much fun being a banker in Argentina. But while it is pretty much universally tough for everyone, spare a thought for individuals like Juan Parma, HSBC’s chief executive Argentina and head of wealth and personal banking America. Because, while Parma’s peers in Argentine banks face many of the same challenges he does, at least for them the whole organization is still focused on the country. HSBC’s global leadership could be forgiven for skipping over the country in global strategy meetings.

It is tempting to conclude that Citi’s impressive suite of treasury management services, for which it wins the award of Latin America’s best bank for transaction services, is the result of the bank knowing that it really needs to excel in this area. Given the growth strategy being pursued by chief executive Jane Fraser, which has seen the bank pull out of many retail banking markets to focus on corporate and investment banking, a market-leading transaction services offering is imperative.

Banco Pichincha has been developing several strategies to boost social inclusion and improve gender dynamics in Ecuador. The bank now has an impressive portfolio of projects that fit under the corporate responsibility banner.

BNP Paribas’s sustainability strategy for Latin America continues to mature, underpinning the bank’s strong position across the continent. The bank has made considerable efforts to deepen its focus on the three most important sustainability issues in Latin America: protecting biodiversity, promoting social development and decarbonizing hard-to-abate industries.

There is no better wealth manager in Latin America than Banco Santander. It won the award for best private bank in Latin America in Euromoney’s 2023 private banking awards.

The retrenchment that Citi has made in the retail markets of central America has clearly not impacted its dominance of corporate and investment banking in the region. It wins the award for central America’s best investment bank again this year.

Latin America saw increased interest from many different types of acquirers in the past year as volatility elsewhere boosted the relative attractiveness of the region’s economic, legal and regulatory frameworks.

If an organization in Latin America – corporate, sovereign or multilateral – wants to raise finance, Citi will invariably be part of the conversation. The bank’s financing team, led by Adrian Guzzoni, head of debt capital markets for Latin America, and Marcelo Millen, head of equity capital markets for Latin America, has shown that Citi’s ability to access local and international sources of funding and to present options spanning debt, loans and equity is a compelling proposition for finance departments across the region.

UBS continues to assert its position as the Middle East’s best bank for wealth management. It won this award last year and the one before that – and the one before that. It is active in every important market, continues to expand its reach and innovates intelligently, introducing products tailored to regional clients’ specific needs.

HSBC wins the award for the Middle East’s best bank for financing this year. During the awards period the bank topped the equity capital markets league tables, completing 12 deals – more than any other financial institution – worth just over $4 billion, according to Dealogic.

Mashreq Bank is a perennial winner of this award. Can any other regional lender compete with its ambition to be not just the best digital bank in the region but one of the best in the world? So far at least answer is a resounding ‘no’.

Citi is the standout winner of the award for the region’s best bank for advisory in 2023. In a strong year for M&A, it was way ahead of the pack. It advised on 18 completed deals collectively worth $32.1 billion, giving it a 26.5% share of the market, according to data from Dealogic.

In the Middle East, sustainability is about adaptation, not just to the increasingly stark evidence of climate change but also to the global demand for a more diversified energy mix to lessen fossil-fuel extraction.

Kuwaiti citizens are proud of the National Bank of Kuwait (NBK), the country’s largest bank by assets, and for good reason. NBK views itself as a pillar of the corporate and financial community. It deserves to win this award for several reasons, starting with its willingness to connect with worthy new initiatives.

Arab Bank has long been at the forefront of innovation in lending to small and medium-sized enterprises. Its regional reach gives it the kind of presence few can match. At the time of writing, the Jordanian bank oversees a network of 600-plus branches on five continents and boasts offices in Jordan, Lebanon, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

All big banks say they are leaders in transaction services, few really are. HSBC is always in contention for this award and takes the honours after a year full of new services and innovation.

Bank of America has become a global leader in digital banking steadily and without fuss. It has been a quiet route to success for the US financial firm; one done its own way, on its own timetable, and at its own pace.

The volatile conditions during much of the awards period meant that banks supporting borrowers in North America needed to be flexible.

Global macroeconomic turmoil might seem far from the day-to-day concerns of small and medium-sized enterprises, but those issues are getting ever closer to the heart of their business. Inflation, supply chains, labour shortages and commodity prices were just some of the challenges thrown up in the awards period.

The volume of completed M&A deals involving a North American buyer or target was steeply down in the awards period this year, with a 41% drop to just under $2 trillion. But in volatile times activity concentrates on the very best franchises, and this year demonstrated that well. For increasing its market share and strengthening its already dominant position, Goldman Sachs is North America’s best bank for advisory.

Citi’s transaction services bankers can be in no doubt of the firm’s commitment to their business. Chief executive Jane Fraser is on record calling the Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) division the crown jewel of the bank and she rarely misses an opportunity to refer to it. The bank invested $1 billion in technology for this business alone in 2022.

From the outside looking in, sustainable finance in North America seems to act much like a see-saw. Last year, news about the wave of anti-environmental, social and governance legislation coming from Republican states was immediately followed by $500 billion of financial incentives for clean energy and healthcare under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). This was then followed by concerns over gridlock when the Republicans took control of the House.

As the immediate chaos of the global financial crisis subsided, Morgan Stanley took a long hard look at its strategy and chose to focus on wealth and investment management. It is a decision that has paid off. Private banking generates steadier, more reliable income streams than the more cyclical business of investment banking.

All banks today claim to have inclusion, diversity, accessibility and sustainability programmes, but some stand out for the breadth of their initiatives. Under chief executive Bharat Masrani, Canada’s TD Bank Group is one that has made corporate responsibility a priority for years in its approach to customers, clients and employees.

UBS’s financing business might not have the widest scope in the industry these days, nor does the bank top the debt and equity capital markets league tables, but what it does have is expertise that is unusually well tailored to the times. For its skill in responding to its target clients’ needs, and particularly those of financial institutions, it is our pick as western Europe’s best bank for financing.

Isabel Guerreiro, head of retail and digital for Europe at Banco Santander, describes her employer as a digital bank with branches. This is what is behind the Spanish bank’s continued success with the small and medium-sized enterprise segment across Europe.

Last year, Rothschild & Co advised on a higher volume of M&A transactions than any of its European rivals, with its $220 billion of completed deals putting it comfortably ahead of Barclays on $207 billion, Lazard's $185 billion, BNP Paribas' $178 billion and Deutsche Bank's $145 billion.

The past year has seen Societe Generale reap the benefits of its long-term investment initiative in its transaction services business across Europe.

BNP Paribas’s wealth management team has had a stellar year. In Euromoney’s 2023 private banking awards, it was named Europe’s best private bank and the Middle East’s best private bank. It also won a hatfull of country awards, including best domestic private bank in France and best international private bank in Belgium and in Switzerland.

In April 2022, the European Central Bank launched a call for payment service providers, banks and technology companies to engage in the creation of prototypes for a digital euro and associated payment services.

The lasting impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on global energy markets has steered the sustainability conversation towards efficiency and practicality in western Europe. Beyond investing in low-carbon solutions to reduce the energy intensity of across a range of sectors, banks were preoccupied with clients’ transition plans to reduce their own financed emissions, while facing tougher disclosure regulations and public scrutiny of their continued financing of the oil and gas sector.

Perhaps it is no surprise that when Euromoney sits down with Bank of America to discuss the bank’s pitch for this category there are five people in the meeting – and they are all women. This is a bank that has led from the front across all aspects of corporate social responsibility (CSR), including diversity and inclusion (D&I).