Who Has The Most Valuable Bank Brand?

I just got The Banker magazine’s February issue discussing the top banking brands of the world. Timely, as I have been talking about trust and brands this week. In particular, I guess I was surprised the Chinese banks are the strongest brands across the board in 2018, with the top 10 names being:

Rank, Name, Country, Brand Value, Last year’s position

ICBC, China, $59.2bn (1)

China Construction Bank, China, $56.8bn (3)

Wells Fargo, USA, $44.1bn (2)

Bank of China, China, $41.8bn (5)

Chase, USA, $38.8bn (4)

Agricultural Bank of China, China, $37.3bn (7)

Bank of America, USA, $33.3bn (6)

Citi, USA, $30.8bn (8)

HSBC, UK, $18.3bn (9)

JPMorgan, USA, $17.7bn (11)

Compare this with just seven years ago, when the 2011 list was released:

Wells Fargo, USA, $28.9bn (2)

Bank of America, USA, $26.7bn (1)

Bradesco, Brazil, $18.3bn (4)

Santander, Spain, $17.0bn (3)

ICBC, China, $16.8bn (6)

China Construction Bank, China, $16.8bn (5)

Itau, Brazil, $16.7bn (13)

Chase, USA, $14.2bn ((9)

Bank of China, China, $12.9bn (10)

BNP Paribas, France, $12.8bn (8)

What’s happened to the European and Brazilian bank brands? Oh yes, a sovereign debt crisis and a rotten economic record in Brazil. That left the way open for the American and Chinese banks, and the Chinese have taken over.

I said this ten years ago. Here’s an extract from a chapter I wrote for The Future of Banking book back in 2006:

The re-energizing of Chinese banking will continue. This was demonstrated by the flotation of the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBI) on 20 October 2006.

The IPO turned out to be the largest the world has ever seen, with the $19 billion sale dwarfing the $12 billion raised from 53 IPOs in the second half of 2006 on Wall Street. Even more noteworthy was the fact that, by the end of the first day of trading, the Chinese lender had a market value of about $157 billion which was more than Goldman Sachs Group and Lehman Brothers Holdings put together, according to Fortune magazine.