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There are only three banks today that offer a full range of corporate and institutional services globally. And it is no coincidence that these are the three most-recent winners of Euromoney’s award for the world’s best bank: Citi in 2015, BNP Paribas in 2016 and this year’s winner, HSBC.
The need for global banks is not diminishing: international trade remains the lifeblood of global economic growth and banks are essential to that process. But the number of banks able or willing to offer a truly global platform to their clients has shrunk dramatically since the financial crisis.
That said, running a global bank has never been a more difficult proposition. The investment in maintaining that platform is substantial and it is hard to keep costs under control. Regulations make it much harder to produce decent returns on equity. Many investors prefer banks to have a much narrower focus in their business models – the Nordic banks are an often-quoted example. And of course in the era of compliance, fines and even prosecutions, the more moving parts a bank has, the harder it is to ensure the oversight is in place to prevent costly mistakes.
Euromoney can confidently say...