RBS topped the losses list while Chinese banks raked in profits

Published 24th Jun 2009

RBS topped the losses list while Chinese banks raked in profits


Royal Bank of Scotland, now 70%-owned by the government, lost more money last year than any other bank in the world, new figures out today confirm.

The Banker's Top 1,000 annual survey reveals that RBS's pre-tax operating loss of $59.3bn (£36bn) puts it way out in front of Citigroup, which was second with losses of $53bn.

The survey by the Banker magazine revealed the geopolitical power shift among the world's financial institutions. While banks from the UK, Germany and the United States all featured among the 10 biggest losses, the two most profitable banks were Chinese and four banks from China were in the top 10.

The world's most profitable bank last year was the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, which made $21.3bn, followed by China Construction Bank. Spain's Santander was the highest-placed European bank, coming in third with profits of £15bn. The highest UK bank was sixth-placed HSBC with profits of $9.3bn, beating Barclays, which was seventh, by $448m.

Overall, the world's top 1,000 banks saw profits fall 85.3% and return on equity fell 20% to 2.69% last year.

Such was the extent of governments' bank interventions that the amount of money found to bail out financial institutions over the past six months is 133 times greater than the amount of aid given to poor countries over the past 49 years, according to a UN Millennium Campaign report also out today.

Source: ' Guardian '

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