JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America lead large-bank revenue per employee rankings, while mid-tier banks such as First Abu Dhabi Bank and Saudi Awwal Bank report higher overall productivity levels, supported by focused business models, digital adoption and cost discipline.
This year's TAB Global Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards 2026 reveals three forces reshaping retail banking in ways that go beyond the interest rate cycle: the compression of spread-based income and the drive to diversify revenue; a fundamental reappraisal of the deposit franchise; and the deepening integration of artificial intelligence across banking operations and client engagement.
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A correlation analysis across 100 global retail banks in FY25 finds a weak but statistically significant negative relationship between asset size and return on assets. Regional leaders demonstrate that specific business model choices, not balance sheet scale, drive superior profitability.
Asia Pacific remains the world's least profitable banking region, but a group of small emerging-market banks with assets below $50 billion are delivering outsized returns.
Japanese banks record the strongest gains in the market capitalisation ranking, Chinese megabanks retain scale leadership, while Indian and Indonesian lenders lose ground, and Singapore enters the top tier.
China's major banks are expanding overseas revenue, driven by outbound corporates, renminbi internationalisation and domestic margin pressure. Most earnings, however, remain concentrated in Greater China, highlighting a persistent gap with global peers.
Global CIW banking has entered an execution phase, where rank movement is driven by improvement across multiple dimensions, while the efficiency gap between Middle Eastern and Western institutions widens
European banks across 34 markets saw net profit grow by a factor of 4.4 between FY2020 and FY2025, driven by post-pandemic recovery and the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) most aggressive rate-hike cycle in a generation between 2022 and 2023. As these growth tailwinds ease and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and ECB revise Euro area real GDP growth to between 0.9 and 1.1% in 2026, banks that built structural capacity during the windfall years now demonstrate more stable earnings, with banks in Belgium, Eastern Europe and the Nordics emerging as structural leaders.
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Mai Kaneko leads international business and marketing at DeCurret DCP, a Japanese fintech firm operating a multi-bank network for tokenized deposit under the DCJPY framework. She oversees international expansion initiatives, bank-fintech partnerships and global go-to-market strategy. She holds a Master’s in International Relations from Georgetown University and a Bachelor’s in Economics from University of Tokyo.
Kinoshita has been involved in product development projects across a wide range of industries in Japan, including e-commerce, retail, banking, insurance, and manufacturing. He joined DeCurret DCP in 2024, where he has been engaged in the development of digital currency infrastructure. In addition to building the underlying infrastructure, he supports digital transformation (DX) initiatives associated with the adoption of digital currency solutions across various industries, and promotes projects aimed at enabling cross-border transactions.
Abhinav is currently based in Singapore and leads Client solutions and Sales for Partior. In this capacity, he oversees clients' journeys including commercial and central banks, from defining use cases to product integration. Before taking on this role, Abhinav gained extensive experience working with both global and local banks. He spearheaded transformative initiatives in Payments and Core Banking, requiring him to coordinate efforts across business units, technology teams, and regulatory bodies. Abhinav played a pivotal role in implementing Faster Payments projects throughout Asia, including notable projects like Singapore G3 Fast, Malaysia Duit Now, and Hong Kong FPS. Prior to his tenure in the banking sector, Abhinav served as a Payments Financial Services consultant to various banks and payment fintech companies such as ANZ, Deutsche Bank, and Bank of America. Originally from India, Abhinav holds an Engineering degree and a Postgraduate qualification in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. He is also a dedicated father of two, and he enjoys spending his weekends playing tennis and cherishing moments with his family.
Sakae Hamasaki joined Sanwa Bank (currently MUFG Bank) in April 1993 and worked in corporate banking across five domestic locations. From 2006 onward, he gained extensive experience in the planning, development, and sales of payment-related services for corporate clients in Japan and overseas. He joined DeCurret DCP in 2022, where he has been leading initiatives to support banks in evaluating the adoption of tokenized deposits, as well as collaborating with overseas partners to build cross-border networks utilizing tokenized deposits.
Anouska Ladds is Executive Vice President of Commercial & New Payment Flows, Asia Pacific at Mastercard, based in Singapore. With over 17 years at Mastercard, she has held senior roles across sales, strategy, operations, market development, consultancy, and product development, spanning Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Previously at Barclaycard, she specialised in strategy, customer experience, communications, and SME/acquiring businesses.
Johnson is a seasoned executive and data and AI leader with over 15 years of experience across the public and private sectors. He is currently Assistant Chief Executive at IMDA, where he helps shape Singapore’s digital future and advance the digital economy. He has held senior data and AI roles in regional banking and global consulting, and began his career in defence and critical infrastructure.
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