There are 91 Middle Eastern banks in this year’s Top 1000 ranking – a welcome reversal of the decline in their presence to 83 in last year’s table (compared to 90 in the preceding year).
The year 2010 had proven to be a difficult one for growth in the Middle East given regional banks’ preoccupation with several big debt restructurings, most notably the $24.9bn Dubai World debacle and defaults by some Saudi business conglomerates. However, the regional banking industry experienced a resurgence in 2011 with the total aggregate assets of the banks in the ranking growing by 15.1% to $2168bn while total profits increased by 17.25% to $32.7bn. Globally speaking, the region accounts for 3.72% of the total Tier 1 capital for the 1000 banks in The Banker's overall ranking.
