BEST BANKS 2011 BY REGION

Global Finance Announces Best Banks by Region 2011

NEW YORK, April 8, 2011 – Global Finance magazine has announced its annual awards for the World’s Best Banks in Developed and Emerging Markets. For the first time, the selections will be featured in a single issue. The list of regional winners is on the next page. A full report on the regional and country selections will appear in the May issue of Global Finance.

This is the eighteenth year that the magazine has selected top banks by country and region. The report covers best banks in Africa, Asia, Central & Eastern Europe, Developed Europe, Latin America, Middle East, and North America. The editors of Global Finance made all selections after extensive consultations with corporate financial executives, bankers, and analysts throughout the world. In selecting these top banks, editors considered factors that range from the quantitative objective to the informed subjective. Criteria for choosing the winners included growth in assets, profitability, strategic relationships, customer service, competitive pricing, and innovative products. Subjective criteria included the opinions of equity analysts, credit rating analysts, banking consultants and others involved in the industry. The mix of these factors yields leading banks that may not be the largest, the oldest or the most diversified in a given region, but rather the best — the banks with which companies around the world would most likely want to do business.

“We recognize these banks for their outstanding accomplishments,” says Global Finance’s publisher, Joseph D. Giarraputo. “Global financial markets are extremely difficult and conditions in each market may have differed, but the winning banks were all noteworthy in their dedication to satisfying their customers’ needs.”