Which banks ranked in the 100 most valuable brands?

The news: The 2024 Interbrand Best Global Brands report spotlights financial brands’ resilience and growth, fueled by technology, cost-cutting, and improved customer experience amid economic challenges. Knowing what sets these top banks apart can guide financial institutions’ (FIs’) growth strategies.

What factors into a brand’s strength? According to the report, a brand's value is built on three critical elements:

1. Financial performance: This looks at the financial returns and profit the brand generates, after subtracting the costs for capital used to drive revenues and margins.
2. Role of brand: This examines the extent to which the brand itself influences consumer purchasing decisions against other factors like price or convenience. 
3. Brand strength: This indicates the brand's ability to cultivate loyalty, which ensures long-term demand and profitability. 

Here’s how banks ranked in the top 100 global brands:

JPMorgan:

• It ranked 25, the highest of any bank or financial company. 
• Brand value increased 5% to $27.1 billion, maintaining the company’s influence as one of the leading global financial services brands. 
• JPMorgan is executing multiple growth strategies at once, including dominating in generative AI (genAI) research, expanding its brick-and-mortar presence, and expanding geographically. These moves emphasize its intention to continue strengthening its brand loyalty and recognition globally.

Citibank:

• Ranked at 55, Citibank bolstered its brand value by 6% to $14.5 billion through a focus on customer satisfaction and digital banking solutions.
• The bank underwent a massive reorganization and also refocused where it conducts business geographically—laying the groundwork for further growth.

Goldman Sachs: 

• Ranked at 57 with modest growth of 1%, Goldman Sachs maintained brand value of $14.4 billion, highlighting its prominence in global investment banking.
• Since pivoting away from consumer banking and focusing on investment banking, Goldman earnings consistently beat expectations.

HSBC:

• With a rank of 64, HSBC reached $12.5 billion in brand value—up 6% from last year.
• According to the BBC, the bank also had a major restructuring and is pivoting toward certain geographic regions—predominantly Asia. The shifts toward core markets and its focus on cutting costs helped lift Q3 profits by 10%.

Morgan Stanley:

• Ranked at 66, Morgan Stanley saw a 9% rise in brand value to $12.4 billion.
• It has been on the forefront of experimenting with AI. Additionally, Morgan Stanley’s Q3 earnings showed a significant surge in investment banking fees, strong trading revenues, and substantial wealth management gains, positioning it ahead of its Wall Street peers, per Yahoo Finance.

Santander

• Ranked at 76, Santander’s brand value rose by 5% to $10 billion, supported by its digital banking and personalized services.
• Santander is expanding strategically and geographically by launching its digital speedboat Openbank in North America. While that debut may not immediately bring a big spike in profit, it will enhance the bank’s global influence and its digital efficiency will lower costs for services such as auto loans.

How financial brands can keep driving up brand value: Beyond the reorganizations and expansion strategies these banks used to enhance their influence and financial performances, genAI can be essential to building brand value. That’s because it has the potential to reduce operating costs, improve banks’ ability to personalize services and communications and elevate customer experiences. 

And that means JPMorgan will likely keep its top-ranking position in brand value among banks—unless a competitor can beat it in the race to secure AI talent.