Banks/Banking in worldwide

Bank is a financial intermediary accepting deposits as well as channels the same deposits into various lending activities, directly or via capital markets. Bank is a highly regulated industry as well as there are government restrictions on the financial activities done by the banks. Hence, banks worldwide activities vary over location and time.

In some countries like Germany, banks have major stakes invested in industrial corporations, but the other countries namely United States banks prohibit owning non-financial companies. Japan banks are the cross-share holding known as Keiretsu, while the Iceland banks adhered to a light regulation before the collapse of 2008.

The top banks in the world is considered to be the Bank of America serving small as well as middle market businesses, individual consumers and offer an array of banking services such as online banking, asset management, investing as well as other financial and risk management services and products.

Global ATM Alliance with an attachment of major international banks allows customers to use ATM card with no fees even when they travel internationally. Banks worldwide are popular and as they offer comfortable and online services people flock to banks.

Banking worldwide is prominent and the ten top banks in the world are as per 2010 June 15, have crossed the financial crisis and is continuing to plague the banking system globally. Many banks in the recent times have shut down and merged, making it tough to find a trustworthy bank for savings. In this course, European banks appear to be better than American banks.

However the ten largest banks are BNP Paribas with $3.21 assets and is the largest banks world wide with networks operating in 84 countries. They have retail banking markets in France, Italy, Luxembourg and Belgium.

The second among the top ten banks following BNP is Royal Bank of Scotland having $2.99 trillion assets. They are also the largest banks worldwide operating various banking brands inclusive of business and personal banking, private banking, corporate finance and insurance having its operation in Asia, Europe and North America.

Banking worldwide top ten follows with Barclays with $2.54 trillion assets, Deutsche Bank with $2.43 trillion assets, HSBC Bank with $2.42 trillion assets, Credit Agricole with $2.3 trillion assets, Bank of America with $2.25 trillion assets, Mitsubishi UFJ with $2.07 trillion assets, J.P. Morgan with$2.02 trillion assets and UBS AG with $1.8 trillion assets.