HSBC leapfrogged both BoA and Wells Fargo to attain the top-spot, with the London and Hong Kong-listed banking group being the only firm to have been given a "triple-A" rating for its brand in 2012. That said, broadly speaking US banking brands continue to be strong; half of the world’s top ten banking brands are headquartered in the US, with Chase, Citi Group and American Express securing fifth, sixth and seventh place respectively.

Aside from the ascendancy of HSBC, which is London-headquartered, the other big news was the woeful showing by European banking brands – to the benefit of those coming out of the emerging markets. In fact, driven in large part by the continued economic woes of the eurozone, European banking brands have seen their halos slip to the extent to which banking brands from the BRIC countries now outnumber their European counterparts among the top 20 banking brands and 16 out of the 20 “fallers” in the table were European brands.

Whereas European banking brands were chided by the report’s authors for a “miserable” performance, Chinese names were lauded for their continued strong performance, as China Construction Bank, ICBC, Bank of China and the Agricultural Bank of China all secured top 20 spots. It should be noted however that France’s BNP Paribas rose four places to come eighth in the 2012 rankings, while Spain’s Santander held steady in fourth place. As will be discussed at length in an upcoming research report from ClearView Financial Media, BNP Paribas recently embarked on a global advertising push for its wealth management arm, as have a number of other big-hitting international groups.

Another among these is RBC Wealth Management, which has rolled out its first global ad campaign aimed specifically at the high net worth segment and which aims to emphasize not only the group’s strength but also that of the Canadian financial system . While the wealth management campaign has only recently been rolled out, Royal Bank of Canada is no doubt pleased to be the biggest climber in the Brand Finance Banking 500 rankings, rising from twenty-eighth place in 2011 to just nudge into the top 20 this year.

The Brand Finance Banking 500 report attaches a financial value to banking brands using a discounted cash flow methodology which discounts estimated future royalities to assign a net present value to the banks’ brand names and their associated intellectual property. On this basis, the value of the world’s top 500 banking brands currently stands at $746.7 billion – a figure which is equivalent to the entire GDP of up-and-coming Turkey and which illustrates the huge importance of brand value to the global financial sector.

The dollar-value of the world’s banking brands has however seen a mammoth $94.78 billion wiped off its total over the past year, the report’s authors note, and they warn that this year will shape the fortunes of many nations’ economies and banking brands alike.

“2012 is set to be a landmark year politically with the US election in November and polls in Germany and France too. In this context, the eyes of the world will be examining the brand value of financial institutions as an indicator of broader financial health of their respective nations,” said David Haigh, chief executive of Brand Finance.

As previously mentioned, ClearView Financial Media will shortly be launching its own examination of branding and marketing strategy within the wealth management sector. This ground-breaking research report, entitled Reaching Out To The High Net Worth: Branding & Marketing Strategy Across The Global Wealth Management Industry is sponsored by Coutts & Co and and will be available as part of the membership benefits which accrue to subscribers to WealthBriefing and its sister publications, such as Family Wealth Report.