To earn a safest bank distinction in Global Finance’s 2023 Country Winners awards, an institution must differentiate itself from its in-country peers by prudently managing its franchises amid a volatile post-pandemic global economy. In addition to helping clients weather global inflationary pressures and sometimes aggressive central bank policy responses, trade and supply chain constraints, and the outlook for declining GDP growth in many parts of the world, these banks face unique challenges in their respective countries and markets.

To be eligible for Global Finance’s Safest Banks By Country awards, institutions must rank among the world’s largest 1,000 banks by assets and carry at least one long-term foreign currency deposit or debt rating from one of the three major rating agencies. Wholly owned subsidiaries are ineligible. To identify the safest bank in each country, we have adopted broader criteria than for our global rankings, which require a position among the largest 500 banks and a rating by at least two agencies.

Global Finance ranks the world’s largest 500 banks by asset size, calculated based on long-term foreign currency ratings issued by Fitch Ratings, Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service. Where possible, ratings on holding companies rather than operating companies are used, and banks that are wholly owned by other banks are omitted. Within each rank set, banks are organized according to asset size based on data for the most recent annual reporting period provided by Fitch Solutions and Moody’s.

China again dominates Global Finance’s ranking of the Biggest Emerging Markets Banks, the Chinese institutions having benefited from decades of strong growth of the nation’s sprawling economy. Chinese banks make up the top 15 institutions in our ranking and hold half the top 50 positions.

50 Biggest Emerging markets Banks 2023

Global Finance’s World’s Safest Banks 2023 ranking offers a revealing snapshot of a watershed period in global banking. After years of expansion, aggregate assets of the 50 largest banks contracted 2% to $89 trillion (in most cases, our data captures year-end asset figures as of December 2022).

A robust outlook for Islamic finance, combined with strong economic growth in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries thanks to buoyant oil revenue, places the GCC’s Islamic banks on stable ground. Growth estimates for Islamic banking are greater than 10%, and demand for Shariah-compliant offerings is outpacing that for conventional products. These trends are bolstered by economic diversification initiatives and programs including Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. According to Moody’s Investors Service, “As of March 2023, the market penetration of Islamic banks in Saudi Arabia, which is 83%, and Bahrain, 69%, were the highest in the region; while room for growth is more significant in the UAE, with a penetration rate of 28%, Qatar, 31%, and Oman, 19%.�/p>

Global Finance’s rankings of the safest Islamic banks in the region identify institutions that continue to develop and refine the best Shariah-compliant banking franchises. Rating agency actions reflect these trends and are the catalyst for shifts in our 2023 rankings.

No two emerging markets are ever alike—therefore, the institutions making up Global Finance’s rankings of the Safest Emerging Markets Banks face unique dynamics in each respective region. With the outlook for global growth subdued, many banks face downside risk from post-pandemic inflation, slowing business volumes, asset-quality deterioration and pressure on profitability. The impact of these challenges and of central banks�policy responses is playing out in various ways across the globe.