OREANDA-NEWS. August 04, 2014. The Banker, a British magazine, has recently released its ranking of the Top 1000 World Banks 2014. ICBC ranked atop by tier-one capital, which amounts to USD 207,614 million.

According to the latest ranking, ICBC saw its tier-one capital increase by around 30% over last year, which was the fastest growth rate among the top ten. Furthermore, ICBC led the global banking industry for the second consecutive year by total assets, which stood at USD 3.1 trillion. According to the data released by The Banker, the Bank's NPL ratio of 0.94% outdid all others among the top 20 banks by total assets, which was 2.56 percentage points lower than the average NPL ratio of the pack, and 7.67 percentage points lower than the bank with the highest NPL ratio.

Tier-one capital of commercial banks is thought to be a key indicator used to measure their business growth capability and risk tolerance, as well as an important guarantee for sustainable development. In retrospect of the changes in the ranking released by the magazine over the past decade, no Chinese bank was found on the top ten list until 2007 when ICBC and BOC made their mark. In ten years, the average ranking of ICBC, ABC, BOC and CCB rose from the 28th in 2004 to the 5th in 2014, which has strongly demonstrated the consistent boost in the capital strength and asset quality as well as the growing sustainability of Chinese banks.