Banks still concentrating on bolstering their own funds. Over a one-year period, the divide between the most fragile global banking groups, concentrating on restructuring and paying back public aid and those that most successfully resisted the crisis in 2009 have widened. The latter are, nonetheless, demonstrating more cautiousness and will continue to bolster their own funds and redevelop their solvability margins. The Bloomberg agency has published the list of the most profitable banks, which is based on their net results for 2009. In the “Top 5”: 1) ICBC with €14.17 billion; 2) Barclays with €12.98; 3) CCB with €11.70; 4) Goldman Sachs with €10.04 billion and 5) Banco Santander with €8.94 billion. Bloomberg also published the top European banks in 2010 on the basis of their stock market capitalisation on 19 March last. Compared to last year, HSBC is still at the top of the European banking charts with stock market capitalisation of €132.8 billion, followed by Santander, still in second place with €84.4 billion. BNP Paribas goes up a notch into third place (€68.1 billion in stock market capitalisation). Barclays goes back up from thirteenth to fourth place (€47.6 billion). Crédit Suisse stays in fifth place with €45.1 billion capitalisation. (I.L.)