Three Moroccan Banks Rank Among World’s Top 500 Banking Brands

The British brand valuation and strategy consultancy, Brand Finance, published its report on February 2 in the magazine The Banker. The world’s 500 largest banking brands have reversed the trend of contracting brand value for the first time in three years, observing a 9% growth in brand value to reach a record level of $1,380 billion, the report states. The consolidated value of the brands of the world’s largest banks, which had decreased by 2% at the beginning of 2020 ($1,330 billion) and by 4% at the beginning of 2021 ($1,207 billion), is specified.

Initially caused by economic uncertainty and fluctuating interest rates, the situation was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which had a negative impact on profits and interest rates, explains the London-based company Brand Finance. However, the improvement in the digitization of banking brands, combined with strong government intervention and the global economic recovery, has led to higher than expected profitability in the sector in 2021, the same source continues. According to these criteria, ICBC (1st) is the world’s largest bank in terms of total assets.

In Africa, five South African banks - Standard Bank (145th), First National Bank (146th), ABSA (154th), Nedbank (191st) and Investec (193rd) - are in the top 200. In the Maghreb, three Moroccan banks are in the top 500 most valuable and strongest banking brands in the world: Banque Populaire (288th), Attijariwafa bank (299th) and Bank of Africa (466th). No Algerian, Tunisian, Mauritanian or Libyan bank is included in this global ranking. In the Middle East, QNB (45th) has consolidated its position as the most valuable banking brand in the region, observing a sustained growth in its brand value of 16% to reach $7.1 billion.