No African banks in the top world lenders

There was not a single African lender in the world’s top 100 banks list released by S&P in what is telling of the continent whose countries have seen a rise in the annual issues of dollar debt from just about $200 million (Sh20 billion) in 2006 to about $6.3 billion (Sh6.3 trillion) in 2014 and 2015

The Chinese domination of the global financial system has been demonstrated by its accounting for a fifth of the top 100 banks globally.

China has 18 banks on the top 100 list beating the United Sates which has 11 lenders on the bank elite list according to the latest global bank rankings report from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

S&P said that Chinese banks continued to expand in 2017, with a collectively $23.761 trillion in assets at the end of 2017.

China’s ‘Big Four’ banks – Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China, remained as the top four banks by assets year-over-year, posting a combined $13.637 trillion in assets. This is up $1.727 trillion since last year’s ranking, with half of this growth due to a strengthening yuan against the US dollar.

In the Middle East and Africa region, Qatar National Bank (QPSC) retained the top spot for the third consecutive year, followed by UAE’s First Abu Dhabi Bank and South Africa’s Standard Bank Group which owns Kenya’s Stanbic bank.

S&P said that the strengthening of the Israeli shekel against the U.S. dollar helped Israel’s Bank Hapoalim BM and Bank Leumi le-Israel BM climb to the fourth and fifth spots in the ranking, respectively. The banks would have ranked seventh and eighth if the shekel had remained flat against the dollar over the last year.