BANKS´ PROFITS : RED AND BLACK INK / THE ECONOMIST

Banks' profits

Red and black ink

Jun 24th 2009
From Economist.com


Banks with the biggest profits and losses last year

THE balance sheets of many banks took a pounding last year. Royal Bank of Scotland, which received a government bail-out of $3 billion, posted the largest loss of $59.3 billion, according to an annual review of the world's leading banks by The Banker magazine. Citigroup and Wells Fargo also fell into the red by over $45 billion. But all three are still counted among the 12 biggest banks in the world by tier-one capital, albeit at a lower rank than in 2007. Not all was doom and gloom. ICBC turned a $21.3 billion profit, one of four Chinese banks to make the top ten. HSBC and Barclays, British banks that showed better risk management than RBS, also saw a decent profit.

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