Kookmin Banks Global Ranking Rises to 56th
By Lee Hyo-sik
Staff Reporter
Kookmin Bank, the nation's largest commercial lender, became the world's 56th largest financial institution, with 10 other local lenders putting their names on the list of the global top 1,000 banks.
According to the Bank of Korea (BOK) Wednesday, Kookmin ranked 56th last year in general capital seize, which includes paid-in capital, capital reserves and earned surplus, up six places from 62nd a year earlier. Including Kookmin, a total of 11 domestic lenders were on the list, down from 12 the previous year.
Woori Financial Group was the 65th largest financial institution in 2007, up two notches from 2006, with Shinhan Financial Group and the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation ranked at 77th and 90th, respectively.
HSBC topped the list of the world's largest banks with $105 billion in general capital, up two notches from third place a year ago. Citigroup ranked second with $89.2 billion in capital, unchanged from 2006, followed by ABN Amro, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America.
The number of U.S.-based financial institutions on the list fell to 169 last year from 185 a year ago as many incurred huge losses due to the U.S. subprime mortgage debacle.
In terms of asset size, ABN Amro was the biggest financial institution in the world as its assets rose sharply to $3.8 trillion won after acquiring the Royal Bank of Scotland, and moved it up six places from 2006.
Deutsche Bank came in second with $974.2 billion in assets, followed by BNP Paribas, Barclays and HSBC. UBS saw its ranking drop to eighth from first as it wrote off billions of losses from U.S. mortgage-backed securities investments from its balance sheet.
The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) was the largest bank in the world in market capitalization as its shares were worth $248.8 billion as of the end of June, up three places from a year ago, followed by the China Construction Bank ($197.1 billion).