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El Salvador’s economy is performing poorly considering that its president Nayib Bukele recently won a landslide presidential election. His popularity belies an economy that has been blighted by high inflation, rising poverty and low growth.

The bank is leveraging all its resources to reach six million individuals by 2025. It is well on its way.

International banks inevitably capture a large share of international debt issuance from Poland, notably the sovereign and large commercial banks. But Trigon remains a national success story in investment banking as a purely Polish and private-sector player. It has a large local team that includes one of the country’s most extensive equity research capabilities.

By far the biggest bank by assets in the country and boasting nine million account holders, ING is also the best bank in the Netherlands this year.

After being knocked back by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Kazakhstan’s economy rebounded last year, notching up over 5% growth on strong levels of consumer and public spending.

The Ecuadorian economy slowed significantly in 2023 and was largely driven by public-sector spending. The impact of new president Daniel Noboa, who won the November 2023 election, has yet to be seen, but liquidity remains a persistent issue for the dollarized economy. Seeking scale seems to be the best defence against the country’s regular dollar shortages and in this environment the large banks thrive.

There are many reasons why Citi wins this year’s award for Asia’s best digital bank. Above all, the bank has no peer when it comes to investing year after year in cutting-edge digital solutions that benefit all of its clients.

Under the steady leadership of chief executive Kjerstin Braathen, Norway’s biggest bank continues to perform strongly and is far from relaxing its efforts just because of its size. DNB faces an surprising array of competition in such a small market, with more than 100 banks operating in the country, but its progress ensures it remains Norway’s best bank for another year.

A regional SME champion shows how to operate on the world stage.

The economies of central America have been growing rapidly since the end of the pandemic. Some of this is the natural rebound of economic activity among countries that have outsized tourist sectors; and increased spending in this sector is one of the leading themes of the past couple of years.

Overall 2023 was a challenging year for Colombia’s economy and most of its large banks would have felt reasonably happy with their static performance. But BBVA managed to outperform the market in most banking segments. The firm ended last year as the leading foreign bank in the country and the fourth largest in the financial sector, with an 11.2% market share in terms of assets. However, it was the growth in the difficult conditions that sealed the award for Colombia’s best bank. BBVA grew total loans by 6.4% in the year and increased its market share by 50 basis points to 11.6%, led by an 8.5% increase in loans to individuals, which took market share of that segment to 14.9%, a 106bp rise.

BBVA achieved impressive momentum in Latin America during 2023, winning individual best bank awards in Colombia and Mexico, and coming close in Peru. Its bank in Argentina also posted respectable growth and is poised to take advantage of a potentially more benign economic outlook. The Spanish firm also capitalized on its market leading position in Mexico to win the award for the country’s best investment bank and is also Latin America’s best bank for transaction services – a landmark win in an sector that has traditionally been dominated by US banks.