The article deals with the 10 most effective banks of the world. The Bank of America is the best performer and Credit Agricole is the worst performer among them. It analyses the banks in terms of net interest margin, cost to income ratio, return on average income, apart from discussing other parameters like revenues of the banks within their countries.

This article highlights the financial performance of the ten most effective banks of the world. The Bank of America is the overall best performer among ten most effective banks of the world while Deutsche Bank is number one in terms of revenue income with US$75,790 mn in 2003 and Credit Agricole is the 10^th largest bank with revenue income of US$6,974 mn (see Table 1). Citigroup and Bank of America have performed very well with regard to Net Interest Margin (NIM) ratio, Cost to Income Ratio (CIR) and Return on Average Equity (ROAE). These three ratios are the best indicators of a bank's performance.

If we look at Table 1, it clearly shows that both Citigroup and Bank of America performed almost on equal footing, better compared to other eight banks in 2003 with regard to net interest margin while NIM for Citigroup was 10 basis points higher in 2002. NIM for some of the banks was not attractive. For example, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse had not shown good performance compared to their counterparts. The worst performer was Credit Agricole with NIMs at 0.4% and 0.6% respectively in 2002 and 2003. Average performers were Royal Bank of England, HSBC, Fortis and Barclays Bank.

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