Bank of America tops magazine ranking of 1,000 banks
30 Jun 2010
Bank of America has overtaken rival JPMorgan to finish at the top of the league. The bank has become the global numero uno in terms of capital strength while Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) takes the top spot in the profit league, according to a new study.
Bank of America was placed at the top in `The Banker' magazine's 2010 ranking of the world's banks, based on Tier 1 capital.
The bank's Tier 1 capital shot up by a third from last year to $160 billion ($232.2 billion), which saw it overtake JPMorgan, whose Tier 1 capital slipped 2 per cent to $133 billion.
Raleigh, North Carolina based-Bank of America, had purchased Merrill Lynch in 2008 as the financial crisis raged. It ranked at the top in The Banker's first ever Top 1,000 list published 40 years ago. The list at the time ranked banks on assets rather than capital.
The latest list saw Citigroup placed third after Britain's Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC.
The magazine said it ranked the banks on the basis of Tier 1 capital as a measure of the bank's ability to lend on a large scale and endure shocks.