With banks in nine countries across sub-Saharan Africa, Standard Chartered Bank has a formidable network that produced a number of strong performances in 2005. Of the continent’s 23 country awards, Standard Chartered managed to win a record five in Botswana, Cote D’Ivoire, The Gambia, Kenya and Sierra Leone.
Deutsche Bank is a clear winner for Investment Bank of the Year: EMEA. The scale of its business in Europe is pretty unique, with a particularly powerful franchise across equity and debt capital markets, and FX and derivatives.
The most conspicuous change to the list of sub-Saharan African banks in the Top 1000 is the proliferation of Nigerian institutions. This reflects the impact of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s decree that banks there meet a new minimum capital requirement of N25bn ($192m), up from just N2bn.