English

By Dai Qi

Four Chinese banks crown a list of the global 1,000 biggest banks released on Monday by The Banker, a world-renowned British magazine, the China News Service reported Monday.

In order as the first four banks, they are the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the China Construction Bank, the Bank of China and the Agricultural Bank of China.

Compared to that in 2017, the first ten banks on the list remain more or less the same, four each from China and the United States, and one each from Britain and Japan

"The most obvious change is the first four banks on the list which are all from China. Last year, three of the four banks were from China apart from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.," said Yuan Xiaohui, a researcher from the International Financial Institute of the Bank of China.

For the first time in seven years, the global banking sector has enjoyed double-digit earnings and capital growth, as shown on the list.

Regarding the world's top 1,000 banks, total pre-tax profits reached USD 1.1 trillion in 2017, up 15.57 percent year-on-year. Even Japan's banking sector, which has been implementing a negative interest rate policy for a long time, saw a profit growth rise to 7.6 percent.

Meanwhile, the tier-one capital of the world's 1,000 largest banks in 2017 totalled USD 8.2 trillion, up 11.67 percent year-on-year.

Except for Latin America and the Caribbean, the growth of the tier-one capital in all regions of the world was double-digit, according to the list.

For the first time since 2010, both the rate of profit growth and the level of the tier-one capital increase have broken double digits, indicating a robust recovery in the global banking sector.