World's Largest Banks

List of World's Largest Banks

Bank	Country	Assets ( $B)	Capital ( $B)
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC	UK	3,483	14.36
Deutsche Bank,	Germany	3,068	2.04
Barclays PLC	UK	2,977	3.04
BNP Paribas SA	France	2,892	19.27
Credit Agricole SA	France	2,303	38.14
UBS AG	Switzerland	1,881	0.27
JP Morgan Chase Bank NA	USA	1,746	1.78
Societe Generale	France	1,574	1.01
The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd.	Japan	1,494	12
Bank of America	USA	1,472	3.02
HSBC Bank	UK	1,340	1.16
Citibank NA	USA	1,231	0.75

Source: Balance Sheet of respective banks (2009)

Banks are financial intermediary that accepts deposits and channels those deposits into lending activities, either directly or through capital markets. They connect customers with capital deficits to customers with capital surpluses.

Banking is generally a highly regulated industry, and government restrictions on financial activities by banks have varied over time and location. The current set of global bank capital standards is called Basel II. In some countries such as Germany, banks have historically owned major stakes in industrial corporations while in other countries such as the United States, banks are prohibited from owning non-financial companies. In Japan, banks are usually the nexus of a cross-share holding entity known as the keiretsu. In Iceland, banks had very light regulation prior to the 2008 collapse.

Assets of the largest 1,000 banks in the world grew by 6.8% in the 2008/2009 FY. Growth in assets in adverse market conditions was largely a result of recapitalization.