HDFC Bank Seen Strongest in A-Pac
Indian Banks take honours in Asia Pacific rankings
Mumbai: In a world without Lehman, big may no longer be the best as far as banks go. With bigger banks slowing down their loan and deposit growth, mid-size banks are now clawing to the top.
HDFC Bank has been spotted as the strongest bank in Asia-Pacific followed by state-owned players Punjab National Bank (PNB) and Union Bank of India, which has been ranked seventh in a survey conducted by Asian Banker, a company that provides information for the financial services industry.
Surprisingly, the survey has ranked the country’s largest bank, State Bank of India, at No. 42. Last year’s list of top-20 banks included 10 banks from Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. But this year’s survey features only two banks — Australian bank Westpac Banking Corp and Citi Hong Kong — from this bigger markets. Interestingly, among the Indian lenders, two PSU banks — Corporation Bank (11) and Bank of India (18) — besides the private bank Axis (19) find place in the list.
Several banks with huge assets find themselves way below the list. The exception, however, is China Construction Bank which has been ranked 10th.
One of the world’s biggest banks, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group of Japan, with an asset book of $2.08 trillion, has been ranked 162.
The top three banks in last year’s survey — HSBC, Overseas-Chinese Banking Corporation and Hang Seng Bank — have been ranked 39th, 24th and 30th, respectively, this year.
The top 20 banks have scored high on asset growth, loan growth, deposit growth, profit growth or all the indicators. Liquidity has been a key factor in the way markets have viewed banks in the past few quarters.
But, while a high liquidity and comfortable capital base could be reassuring for clients and investors, the market is now beginning to question when some of these banks will start deploying their capital more aggressively. The survey points out that banks in Singapore, Thailand, India, Vietnam and Hong Kong lead in the level of liquid assets (like government bonds) to total assets.
Most banks in the region have refrained acquisitions this year. The only big deal has been the acquisition of RBS assets in six markets by ANZ group for $550 million.
The survey highlights that the emerging market banks have seen a strong loan and deposit growth to grab the top slots while banks from developed markets slipped in the list. In fact, in the bottom 100, as many as 76 are Japanese banks.
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