Three Indian banks in top 50 lenders in Asia-Pacific by assets

New Delhi: Three Indian banks – State Bank of India, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank – with a combined asset of $1.51 trillion, made it to the list of top 50 banks by assets in the Asia-Pacific region in 2023, as per a report released by S&P Global on Thursday.

ICICI Bank is a new entrant in the top 50 Asia-Pacific lender list. In 2022, only two Indian banks – SBI and HDFC Bank – were part of it.

HDFC Bank’s ranking in the list jumped from 46 in 2022 to 33 in 2023. This is largely due to a sharp increase in the company’s assets following its merger with parent company Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC). HDFC Bank’s valuation jumped to $464.34 billion in 2023, over 51 per cent higher when compared with the previous year.

The public sector lender State Bank of India (SBI) maintains its position as India’s largest bank by assets. SBI improved its ranking to 20 in 2023 from 21 in 2022. SBI’s assets jumped to $780.05 billion in 2023.

The aggregate assets of these three top Indian lenders rose sharply by 50.5 per cent year-on-year to $1.51 trillion in 2023.

“Indian banks have been among the best-performing lenders among peers in Asia. Improvement in financial metrics, coupled with high credit growth in a robust economic environment, has boosted banks’ assets in recent years,” S&P Global said in the report.

Credit growth in India, currently the world’s fastest-growing major economy, stood at 15.6 per cent as of December 29, 2023, versus 14.9 per cent a year ago, according to Reserve Bank of India data.

Despite the sharp year-on-year jump in valuation, the size of Indian lenders remains far below their Chinese and Japanese counterparts. For example, total assets of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China stood at $6.30 trillion in 2023, more than eight times of India’s largest lender SBI.

Banks from mainland China dominated S&P Global Market Intelligence’s ranking of the top 50 lenders by assets in the Asia-Pacific region in 2023.

 Mainland China-headquartered lenders occupied the top four spots on the list, and six of the top 10. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd. remained the biggest bank in the region and in the world at the end of 2023, with Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. moving ahead of China Construction Bank Corp. into second spot on the regional list.

The big four Chinese banks expanded their assets 10.2 per cent year-on-year to $21.91 trillion in 2023, with Agricultural Bank showing the biggest growth at 14.3 per cent.

Lenders based in Japan and South Korea suffered the biggest declines in the annual ranking. The combined assets of Japanese lenders fell 2.5 per cent year-on-year in 2023 to $10.53 trillion, and South Korean banks had a 0.9 per cent year-on-year decline to $2.66 trillion.