Top 8 Banking Firms in Japan, Magazine Says
The eight largest banking companies in the world are Japanese, according to rankings released Wednesday by Institutional Investor magazine.
The largest U.S. banking company, New York’s Citicorp, was 10th on the list, down from seventh last year. Citicorp was the only U.S. banking organization in the top 30, based on assets at the end of 1988.
France’s Credit Agricole rounded out the top 10 in ninth place, a drop of three spots from the previous year.
In the magazine’s 1988 listing, Japanese banks held the first five spots.
The new list represents another reminder of the growing importance of Japanese financial institutions, although banking executives and industry observers point out that size alone does not determine a bank’s ability to compete on the global economic field.
New Requirements in ’92
For instance, Citicorp’s $2.7 billion in pretax earnings last year made it the most profitable banking company in the world. And it ranked third in capital adequacy, an important measure of a bank’s strength.
Japanese banks have been allowed to maintain lower amounts of capital, compared to their assets, which affected their rankings in the capital category. The Japanese institutions, however, are currently raising capital in preparation for new worldwide requirements due to be implemented in 1992 by the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland.
U.S. bankers maintain that their growth has been hampered by federal and state laws that prohibit nationwide banking and restrict the types of businesses that banks can enter. But some of those laws are to be dismantled, and analysts anticipate that the U.S. institutions will eventually begin to move up again.
According to the Institutional Investor list, California’s largest banking company, San Francisco-based BankAmerica, ranked 38th in the world at the end of 1988, based on assets of $93.2 billion. BankAmerica, the parent of Bank of America, was the world’s largest banking company from the end of World War II until the early 1980s.
Security Pacific in Los Angeles, the state’s second-largest banking company, ranked 57th; First Interstate in Los Angeles was 73rd, and San Francisco’s Wells Fargo was 85th.
A ranking of individual banks by deposits last year, which did not count non-banking businesses or affiliated banks within a single holding company, found that the 10 largest banks were Japanese. That list was compiled by the American Banker based on figures from the end of 1987. In that listing, Citibank, the principal subsidiary of Citicorp and the largest U.S. bank, ranked 28th.
WORLD’S BIGGEST BANKS Ranked by assets; dollar figures in billions.
‘88 ’87 Bank Nation Assets Deposits 1 1 Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank* Japan $352.6 $280.3 2 2 Sumitomo Bank* Japan 334.8 265.3 3 3 Fuji Bank* Japan 327.9 256.0 4 4 Mitsubishi Bank* Japan 317.9 248.6 5 5 Sanwa Bank* Japan 307.5 244.1 6 8 Indus. Bank of Japan* ** Japan 249.6 214.4 7 9 Norinchukin Bank** + Japan 215.9 197.2 8 15 Tokai Bank* Japan 213.6 170.3 9 6 Credit Agricole France 210.6 143.7 10 7 Citicorp U.S. 203.8 124.0 11 16 Mitsubishi Trust* ++ Japan 196.3 176.2 12 10 Banque Nationale France 197.0 160.5 13 17 Mitsui Bank* Japan 196.2 151.1 14 13 Barclays England 189.3 155.8 15 19 Sumitomo Trust* ** ++ Japan 180.7 160.5 16 12 Credit Lyonnais France 178.9 150.6 17 14 Natl. Westminster England 178.4 144.9 18 21 Mitsui Trust* ** Japan 173.2 149.8 19 11 Deutsche Bank W. Germany 171.5 156.0 20 23 Long-Term Credit Japan 166.9 143.1 21 20 Taiyo Kobe Bank* ** ++ Japan 166.6 130.4 22 24 Bank of Tokyo* Japan 162.6 128.0 23 27 Yasuda Trust* ** ++ Japan 147.2 125.5 24 18 Societe Generale France 145.7 124.7 25 28 Daiwa Bank* ** ++ Japan 144.5 125.1
* As of March 31, 1988 ** Figures don’t include all 50%-owned subsidiaries. + As of Sept. 30, 1988. ++ Not adjusted for all mergers and acquisitions. Source: Institutional Investor
