If you trust
my data on major European champions, the answer is yes. One caveat of
the below data is, however, that it only
includes national champions and ignores boutiques. Even though it is,
therefore, necessarily incomplete, the trends are still interesting.
Total
Assets and Net Income
Total assets
of the above financial institutions differ in absolute figures and
currencies. In any manner, the negative tendency since mid 2012 is
observable for all European champions.
For almost
any bank, the net income evolution in 2012 has been negative. Only
banks from Northern Europe and BNP Paribas constitute exceptions.
Employees
If you are
looking for a job in a European bank, which banks should you
approach? The surprising answer leads us to Spanish banks which are
the only banks in the dataset having increased their headcount in
2012. However, I must admit that even Banco Santander and BBVA
have reduced their numbers of employees slightly over Q4 2012.
![]() |
Headcount Banco Santander / BBVA |
If you are interested, you can find
the data here.