Canada, Singapore world’s strongest banks, says Bloomberg rankings

Canada and Singapore dominate the world's strongest banks, according to a Bloomberg ranking.

The Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. of Singapore retained the title of the world's strongest bank for the second year.

Three of the top 10 banks were in Canada and another three in Singapore.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce landed third, while the Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD Bank), National Bank of Canada and Royal Bank of Canada, followed sequentially, said the Globe and Mail.

Bank of Nova Scotia ranked 18th and Bank of Montreal placed 22nd.

“We and our Canadian competitors are only able to do that because we have some flexibility as a result of our strength,” says Gerald McCaughey,  CEO of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, reported Businessweek.

“Over the longer term, this should actually help to maintain the strength of the Canadian banking system and its competitiveness."

Banks were rated on factors like banks’ Tier 1 capital ratio, the ratio of nonperforming assets to total assets, and the ratio of deposits to funding.  

All of the banks on the list had to have assets in excess of $100 billion.

Banks that took a loss in 2011 net income and those that failed the US Federal Reserve’s latest stress test were excluded from the ranking, reported Bloomberg.

According to the Financial Post, Canada’s six largest banks have spent nearly $40 billion since 2008 on about 100 acquisitions domestically and internationally, while many US and European banks continue to fail or take heavy losses.

TD Bank has aggressively carved out market share on the US east coast in recent years, including numerous branches in New York City.

Canada has only eight publicly traded banks.