Global Finance names 2008 world’s safest banks

Global Finance magazine has released its annual ranking of the World’s Safest Banks, which will be featured in the special October issue alongside several of the magazine’s renowned Best Bank awards.

The World’s Safest Banks were selected through a comparison of the long-term credit ratings and total assets of the 300 largest banks around the world. Ratings from Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch were used.

This is the 16th year that Global Finance has published its list of the world’s largest banks ranked by their creditworthiness. The 10 banks at the top of the list are designated as the “World’s Safest Banks”.

These banks will be honored at an awards ceremony to be held in Washington D.C. on October 13 to coincide with the World Bank/IMF annual meeting.

“These banks have demonstrated an appropriately prudent approach to risk in providing international financial services,” says Global Finance publisher, Joseph D. Giarraputo. “More than ever customers are viewing strong credit quality as an important feature of the banks with which they do business.”

Global FInance, which celebrates its 21st year of publishing in 2008, has 50,000 subscribers and more than 284,000 readers in over 158 countries.

World’s safest banks:

Groupe Caisse des Dépôts (CDC) France
Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten (BNG) Netherlands
Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank Germany
Rabobank Netherlands
Landeskreditbank Baden-Wuerttemberg-Förderbank Germany
Lloyds TSB United Kingdom
BNP Paribas France
Dexia Belgium
Wells Fargo United States
NRW Bank Germany

Update: As of Oct. 1 Dexia in Belgium had ceased operations.

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