Leading banks in Europe 2021, by market capitalization

The highest market capitalization among the largest banks in Europe as of end 2021 was HSBC's market cap of 122 billion U.S. dollars, followed by Sberbank with around 88 billion U.S. dollars, and BNP Paribas, with around 85 billion U.S. dollars. Despite some fluctuations during the last decade, HSBC has continuously kept the highest market cap among the largest European banks.

What is market capitalization?

Market capitalization, which is often used as a measurement of a company’s size is calculated by multiplying the number of outstanding shares by the cost of one share. Market Capitalization is an important metric for investors as it is simple to calculate and is also a good indicator for risk assessment. There are, however, many different ways to measure the success of European banks, such as by total assets, revenue, or cost to income ratio (CIR), just to name a few.

European banks fall short globally

On a global scale, HSBC is the only one of the European banks listed in the top 15 banks worldwide for market capitalization as of December 2021. The U.S.-based bank JP Morgan Chase topped the worldwide ranking as of end 2021, with a market capitalization of 468 billion U.S. dollars.