Market capitalization of banking sector worldwide 2016-2020
Market cap and banking
The leading banks worldwide each have a market cap up to hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars. Naturally, the metric can mostly measure publicly traded companies as they are obliged to publish financial reports. The major international banks are already publicly traded, as opposed to smaller financial institutions or fintech companies operating in the banking sector.
Other measures
Market cap gives an idea of the value of a bank’s size, but says little about the size of its balance sheet. For this reason, sometimes analysts prefer alternate measures. Assets under management gives an idea of the total value of assets that a bank oversees. Depending on the type of bank, looking at sources of revenue may better explain the bank’s operational priorities.