Unlike the past four successive years of record pre-tax profits and strong growth, The Banker’s 2008 Top 1000 World Banks rankings, based largely on fiscal 2007 results, reflected the US subprime crisis and global credit crunch and showed a 0.7% decline in profits to $780.8bn.
The dominance of South African Banks in he sub-Saharan Africa region is under threat. For the second year in a row, Nigeria’s banks have soared up the global league tables and are knocking on the door of the more established ‘blue-blood’ brands of South Africa.
Latin America is still roaring ahead on the back of a commodity boom. By the end of 2007, the region had amassed about $400bn in foreign currency reserves, according to the International Monetary Fund. How these inflows came about is indicative of the economics of each country.