Global Finance’s rankings expand from 50 to 100 safest banks.
The global banking sector faces significant challenges, as economies around the world experience volatility caused by US tariff policies and intense competition that reshapes banks’ strategies and business models. Against this backdrop, our 2025 rankings expand the world’s safest banks from the top 50 global banks to the top 100, providing a broader view of the sector and deeper insight into its resilience.
Washington’s evolving tariff policy and resulting disruptions to global trade and supply chains have fractured economic ties between the United States’ largest trading partners, contributing to upward pressure on inflation and diminished global growth. These represent ongoing issues that are likely to grow as the full effects of tariffs become apparent. According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), October forecasts for growth in global trade volume in 2025 rose to 2.4% from 0.9% in August, mainly due to front-loading of imports into the United States ahead of announced tariffs. However, the WTO forecast for 2026 is bleaker, with trade volume growth falling to 0.5%.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) September Economic Outlook expects global GDP growth to decline from 3.3% in 2024 to 3.2% in 2025, and to 2.9% in 2026. Regionally, US economic growth is expected to decline from 2.8% in 2024 to 1.8% in 2025 and 1.5% in 2026, while GDP growth in the euro area declines. It will be 1.2% in 2025, then falling to 1% in 2026. China faces a potential contraction from 4.9% of GDP in 2025 to 4.4% in 2026.
With this year’s developments, many of the world’s central banks are in a steady accommodative cycle, with global interest rate cuts expanding to stimulate their economies. Organizations leading the most effective service offerings continue to invest in technology to aggressively transform their business models beyond their current digital platforms and online capabilities. These banks are increasingly using generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to accelerate this transformation by leveraging data analytics to quickly identify new solutions to drive growth and uncover cost efficiencies.
Top 100 global companies
Often, changes in a country’s sovereign rating provide the impetus for annual shifts in our annual ratings. It is worth noting that Moody’s lowered France’s rating to Aa3 from Aa2, pointing to the financial challenges the country faces with the reduction of the deficit and weak public finances. This was followed by a downgrade of banks’ ratings, due to reduced government support for ratings under the agency’s methodology. As a result, Trust and Deposit Bank fell to 29th from 11th, SFIL fell to 47th from 19th, BNP Paribas fell to 60th from 48th, Credit Agricole Bank fell to 61st from 49th, and Credit Mutuel Bank fell to 62nd from 50th.
Likewise, following Fitch’s downgrade of China’s rating in April 2025 due to weak public finances, subsequent downgrades kept Chinese banks lower in the ratings, with the China Development Bank at 73, the Agricultural Development Bank of China at 75, and the Export-Import Bank of China at 76.
On a positive note, Saudi Arabia benefited from Moody’s upgrade of its credit rating to Aa3 from A1 in November 2024, with the agency noting progress made in economic diversification. Standard & Poor’s recognized the country’s sustainable social, economic and capital market reforms with an upgrade in March 2025 to A+ from A. These moves allowed two banks to enter the top 100 list: National Bank of Saudi Arabia at No. 99 and Al Rajhi Bank at No. 100.
In Canada, National Bank of Canada’s progress in growing its franchise to expand beyond its home market of Quebec led to a Standard & Poor’s upgrade that moved the bank to 44th place from 68th last year. At Toronto-Dominion Bank, anti-money laundering deficiencies prompted both Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the bank, dropping its rating to 41st from 21st last year.
methodology
Our ratings apply to the world’s 500 largest banks by asset size and are calculated based on long-term foreign currency ratings issued by Fitch Ratings, Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service. Under our methodology, we require an evaluation from at least two of these agencies. It is important to note that the top 500 banks with at least two agency ratings are drawn from a universe of approximately 1,000 banks, where not all banks hold two agency ratings. Where possible, classifications of holding companies rather than operating companies are used; Banks wholly owned by other banks were eliminated. Within each rating group, banks are organized according to asset size, based on data for the most recent annual reporting period provided by Fitch Solutions and Moody’s. The ratings are reproduced with permission of the three rating agencies, with all rights reserved. A rating is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold securities; It does not comment on the market price or its suitability for a particular investor. All ratings in the tables were valid as of August 15, 2025.
