There is fierce competition in sustainable finance in Western Europe, but this year one bank stands out for its commitment across all the sectors and countries in which it operates and for its work on ensuring the needs of both environment and society are addressed.

The best bank for financing in the region is Goldman Sachs.

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.

Santander has been one of the most innovative groups in the world in its response to the Covid-19 outbreak, and its Polish subsidiary is no exception.

Kenya’s Equity Bank stands out for its digital offering, and is poised to take advantage of the coronavirus-fuelled pivot towards cashless banking.

Bank of America is the undisputed leader in transaction services in North America. Long before the coronavirus crisis struck its home market, the bank had entered the Euromoney awards period with strong momentum. But by the end of that period it was being called upon to deploy all its leadership to help businesses across the US.

As the biggest retail bank in a country where cash usage is lower than other big European states and where cloud-based neobanks have particular traction, Lloyds Banking Group faces an unusual digital banking challenge.

If there is one thing that will test a bank’s digital and technology platform it is a global pandemic. The investment that Bank of America has put into all of its digital offerings over the last few years became truly apparent over the first few months of 2020; and it wins the award for North America’s best digital bank.

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.

Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs) play a unique role in the US, but they were not included in the earliest Covid-19 stimulus packages. So it was vital that big banks helped them to reach those that needed loans the most.

First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) is the number one bank for loans in the Mena region, with a 15.5% market share, arranging some 160 transactions including $5 billion of syndicated loans from April 2019 to March 2020. But it has also won numerous debt capital markets mandates across the region.

Emirates NBD has excelled in all elements of its response to the Covid-19 pandemic, from steps taken to protect the health of its employees to loan deferrals for its customers; but what really stands out is the bank’s commitment to its community.

HSBC has been central to maintaining imports of vital goods into the region, even while national borders slammed shut.

Center-Invest Bank became the first Russian bank to issue a green bond with its R250 million ($3.56 million) offering in November last year. It was a natural step for a bank that has been committed to the environment and responsible banking from its inception.

In a transformative year for capital markets in the Middle East, HSBC stands out as the region’s best investment bank, reclaiming the title it last won in 2017.

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.

The list of deals from 2019 and 2020 – green bonds, social bonds, sustainability bonds and ESG-linked loans – goes on and on for HSBC in Asia under Jonathan Drew, managing director, sustainable finance.

It’s hard to find a more comprehensive and cutting-edge offering in wealth management across Africa than that of Standard Bank, which is why the bank wins the award for best bank for wealth management in Africa once again.

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.

Latin America’s best bank this year is BBVA. The Spanish-headquartered bank has long been vulnerable to competitors’ claims that it was more a federation than an integrated network of subsidiaries, but the bank’s most recent performance shows that the management – overseen by Jorge Sáenz-Azcúnaga, head of country monitoring at BBVA – has addressed this weakness.

Results index More data .

Euromoney will ask investors to nominate their top three credit research providers across a range of sectors and borrower types.

As 2014 came to an end Euromoney Research Group asked corporate funding officials for their views on key topics affecting companies in Central and Eastern Europe. From the fraught situation in Ukraine to plans for seeking international credit ratings, find the exclusive results of the survey here.

Self-Explanatory Poll Answer

Sub-Saharan Africa’s capital markets continue to make up a tiny proportion of overall global investment banking activity. Investment banking fees for the region in the first eight months of the year totalled less than $200 million, a fraction of a global fee pool of close to $60 billion, according to data from Thomson Reuters.

When it comes to the difficulties in liquidity management faced by treasurers operating in China, 21.3% say renminbi cash-pooling is top of the list of issues.

Facing difficult trading conditions and rising regulatory costs, FX market participants are hoping a rising economy will give business a boost.

High US tax rates on funds repatriated by big US multinationals are prompting them to raise debt rather than send money home

International companies are less likely to invest in India than Iran due to the seemingly more onerous regulatory and tax regime of the world’s largest democracy, according to a pulse survey conducted by Euromoney.

Treasury professionals of companies with combined annual sales of more than $250 billion have voted China, India and Russia as the worst countries to repatriate company funds from, according to Euromoney’s ‘trapped cash’ pulse survey.