JPMorgan recorded a hat-trick in the liquidity rankings, but it was all change in many other areas of this year’s Euromoney FX poll.

Ghana’s banking sector went through severe challenges in 2018 after the central bank’s asset quality review in 2017 revealed several structural challenges, including poor corporate governance, poor risk-management practices and regulatory non-compliance.

CaixaBank’s response to the coronavirus crisis started with a recognition of the vital role of its physical network, which reaches more small and isolated communities than any other bank in Spain.

The Covid-19 crisis has emphasized the importance of banks that can stand by their clients and bring them funding in the toughest times. Euromoney’s best bank for financing in Western Europe, BNP Paribas, has stepped up to a greater extent than peers, especially on a pan-European level – although its achievements this year go beyond the coronavirus response.

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented change to the way that business is carried out in Africa. For those banks central to supply-chain management and trade finance, the need to maintain the flow of food, essential goods and personal protection equipment despite border closures is critical.

When Euromoney met the head of retail banking at Ping An Bank, Xinfa Cai, in September 2019, he talked of his desire to hear his employer mentioned, in terms of its dedication to innovation and service, in the same breath as the likes Taobao and JD.com, two of China’s biggest and best digitally driven corporates.

Societe Generale has long been active in promoting finance for small and medium-sized enterprises in Africa.

Across sustainable finance and microfinance, BBVA is working to support greener and more inclusive economies. It wins the award for best bank in Latin America for sustainable finance.

When a big US bank joins its peers around the world under an umbrella of responsible banking, it lifts the entire responsibility agenda – and this is exactly what Citi has done as an early signatory to the Principles of Responsible Banking (PRB) of the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative.

The best digital bank award goes to Banco Inter, which has pulled off the difficult feat of keeping both its investors happy following its 2018 IPO – as it matures from a rapid growth story – and its clients.

Banreservas responded to the national state of emergency brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic by working closely with the Dominican Republic’s authorities and the central bank to keep the banking system liquid and avoid corporate insolvencies.

One of the first things Nigeria’s Guaranty Trust Bank did with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic was to get in touch with local authorities to see how the bank could help. Recognizing that the fragile public healthcare system would struggle to cope with the predicted number of patients, it offered to set up a care facility for people with Covid-19.

There’s practically nothing that a North American small to medium-sized enterprise might want to do that Bank of America won’t be able to help with. Its strategy, built around six service areas, has been enduringly constant for five years, and it again wins the award for North America’s best bank for SMEs.

Over the past decade Poland’s banks have consistently been at the head of the pack in Europe in terms of digitalization.

Supported by helpful regulators, many Asian lenders adapted well to the pandemic. Hong Leong Bank (HLB) was no exception. The Kuala Lumpur-based lender donated to local NGOs and delivered food parcels to the needy during Ramadan.

Kenya’s Equity Bank stands out as a modern financial institution, a domestic champion and a regional player. As a result, it receives this year’s award for Africa’s best bank.

Standard Chartered’s contribution to the development of African markets this year was shown in several transformational infrastructure deals, including Tanzania’s light railway and a huge offshore oil drilling rig in Angola. This contribution makes it Euromoney’s best bank for financing in Africa.

As the sixth-largest bank in North America by branches, TD Bank Group penetrates deep into the Canadian and US markets. It deployed massive support to retail and corporate clients in both countries as the coronavirus crisis took hold.

Another brisk year of M&A deal flow in CEE produced a clear winner on the advisory side. The best bank for advisory, Citi, dominated Dealogic’s league tables for the 12 months to the end of March, acting on 17 deals worth $17.7 billion, versus just $9.5 billion for its nearest rival.

The North American mergers and acquisitions advisory business has one obvious volume leader most years. This year is no different, but that doesn’t mean nothing else changes.

Equity Bank has been involved in healthcare provision in Kenya since 2015, when it established Equity Afia as an integrated, scalable and sustainable healthcare delivery model through its nonprofit foundation.

To the detractors of big Wall Street banks, Goldman Sachs might not seem an obvious candidate for recognition of its response to a humanitarian crisis. But when the Covid-19 crisis struck, the bank rapidly deployed a raft of measures spanning frontline support for hospitals to online versions of its community volunteering programmes.

As of late June 2020, Citi, together with its charitable Citi Foundation, had committed some $100 million to Covid-19 relief efforts. While the targets of its aid are varied, the bank has made a special focus on supporting people and communities of colour, recognizing the disproportionate impact the pandemic has had on these communities.

As Spain became one of the countries hardest hit by the coronavirus, Spanish banks were quick to pledge financial support for small and medium-sized enterprises.

BNP Paribas has sustainability and inclusiveness at its heart, as shown in its approach to all of its stakeholders. This year the bank wins the award for the region’s best bank for corporate responsibility.

“This pandemic will change a lot of things in terms of how people approach crises in the future,” Martin Mugambi, Citi’s chief executive for Kenya and east Africa, tells Euromoney.

Citi has the largest presence of any global bank in Africa – active in over 40 countries, with offices in 16 of those. The bank excels at capacity building and innovation, working with a vast array of partnerships with government, government agencies, fintechs, local financial institutions, consumer goods companies, social enterprises and nonprofits.

Citi worked hard to mitigate the effects of the pandemic throughout central and Latin America and, given its history and geographical spread throughout the region, its impact was widespread.

Morgan Stanley rarely seems to put a foot wrong in Asia. As ever, it seemed to be everywhere last year, a key player on the deals that mattered most.

Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) are the backbone of the Nigerian economy. A survey carried out in 2018 by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics estimated there are over 41 million firms with 199 employees or fewer in Nigeria, accounting for almost 50% of GDP. MSMEs provide almost 60 million jobs, equal to 86% of the national workforce.