Introduction
The banking industry has always been susceptible to economic fluctuations. The subprime mortgages crisis, that started to be felt in 2007 and is still going on, is not an exception. Although it had consequences all over the world, the main effects were seen in American financial markets, followed by the European ones. The top ten banks of the world also suffered the consequences; these can be seen in the changes occurred among these leading institutions in terms of market capitalization and also total assets. After several years of believing in free markets, capitalism and no government intervention, the whole scene has changed. During this period, the governments, acting together with their respective central banks, assumed a more interventionist role, trying to regulate the economic fluctuations triggered by the crisis. It is interesting to analyse the effects all these changes had (and still have) on the banking industry. In the following paper, I am going to present a ranking of the world leading banks (by market capitalization and total assets) and analyze the results in order to observe the impact of the financial crisis on these banks’ drivers.
Context
From World War II until the late 70’s, banking was a stable activity that was not so sensitive to economic fluctuations. From there on, deregulation and liberalisation transformed banking into an unstable activity, completely responsive to changes in the economic environment. Technological change created the necessary conditions to make banking evolve into one of the most profitable activities; new ways of risk managing made it possible to have more precise risk profiles and bankers could offer more customised products to its clients. Until a few years ago, there was a popular belief in progress and the limits to banking growth could not be foreseen. It was not until 2007 when the consequences