Would anyone recognise the world banking system of a year ago? Well, this is how it looks now. Writing today, banking correspondent Jill Treanor points out that
At a meeting in Downing Street, executives from 13 major African, Asian, European and US banks discussed regulatory reform and the need to avoid protectionism. The meeting came amid warnings that until confidence was restored in the world's banks, the economic crisis would deepen and be prolonged.
It doesn't help that in the topsy-turvy world of banking, an asset is something that you owe the bank, like a mortgage. And a liability is something they owe you, like the money in your current account.
The data below is the world's biggest banks, ranked by The Banker based on their assets — plus their latest stock market value from Thomson Reuters. It shows which of the world's banks are sitting on the biggest loans books - and which are most exposed. Compare the amounts outstanding to the market value and you get some idea of why the banks are so worried. You can also see from this which ones don't exist anymore
DATA: top 50 banks in the world with their assets and market values
GRAPHIC: how we visualised this data
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