The recognition, which is issued on an annual basis, is based on a "Central Banker Report Card," which grades central bank governors of 30 key countries in addition to the European Central Bank (ECB) on an "A" to "F" scale for success in several financial policy and management areas.
Zeti, together with Jean-Claude Trichet, governor of the European Central Bank, and Glenn Stevens, Stanley Fischer, Durmus Yilmaz, Lee Seongtae, and Fai-Nan Perng, who are governors of the central bank authorities in Australia, Israel, Turkey, South Korea and Taiwan respectively, all scored the highest grade.
The only three Middle Eastern countries featuring in the rankings were Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel. The performance of Muhammad Al-Jasser, governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) improved from a "C" in 2009 to a "B" in the 2010 ranking.
Since taking over the helm at SAMA two years ago, Al-Jasser's appointment raised huge expectations of a rapid reform of the Saudi financial sector including a faster pace of financial market liberalization. However, he faces entrenched structural challenges both at the policy and implementation levels.
According to Global Finance, "A" denotes an excellent performance, down through to "F" for outright failure. This is the second successive year that Gov. Zeti has scored an "A" in the Global Finance rankings.
The accolade, announced in September 2010, is in recognition of the success of these heads of central bank authorities in inflation control, economic growth goals, currency stability, interest rate or profit rate management and banking policy - both conventional and Islamic banking.
Global Finance Publisher Joseph Giarraputo said: "During one of the toughest years on record, the World's central bankers were tested as never before. Every year, we try to assess the determination of central bankers to stand up to political interference and their efforts at forcing their governments to spend less, and to open their economies to foreign investment and financial services."
In another wake-up call for GCC and Middle East banking, the same magazine's "World's 50 Safest Banks 2010" annual list, which will officially be published in October and released during the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) Annual Meetings in Washington DC, features only two banks from the region.
National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) appeared 38th in the list while the National Bank of Abu Dhabi was ranked in 50th place.
According to the list, the safest bank in the world is Germany's KfW, followed by France's Caisse des Depots et Consignations (CDC). In fact, Germany, France and Canada have the highest number of banks in the list with six each, followed by the US and Australia with four each.
The sovereign debt crisis in Europe and renewed concerns about the global economic outlook, stressed Global Finance, are once again putting the spotlight on bank safety.
"It should be somewhat reassuring that 45 of the top 50 safest banks is this year's listing maintained their standing among the top echelon in this year's ranking. Banks that cleaned up their balance sheets and strengthened their capital positions were the biggest gainers. In many instances, non-performing loans have been reduced significantly. Several major British banks have rejoined the top 50, although many of the big name banks that lost their safest bank ranking during the credit crunch are still absent from the list."
The banks in the list were selected through a comparison of the long-term credit ratings and total assets of the 500 largest banks around the world. Ratings from Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch were used.
"Banks that have strengthened their liquidity positions and the quality and quantity of their capital are recognized in these rankings," says Giarraputo.
"More than ever, customers around the world are viewing long-term creditworthiness as the key feature of banks with which they do business."
When broken up into regions, there was better news for Gov. Al-Jasser and Saudi banks. They featured well in the top ten safest banks in the Middle East & North Africa region.
Kuwait's NBK, followed by the National Bank of Abu Dhabi were ranked as the safest in the Middle East. Samba Financial Group of Saudi Arabia came third thus ranked as the safest bank in the Kingdom.
The other Saudi banks that appear in the regionalist include National Commercial Bank (fifth), Riyad Bank (sixth), Al-Rajhi Bank (seventh), Saudi British Bank (ninth) and Banque Saudi Fransi (10th). The remaining two banks, Qatar National Bank is ranked fourth safest and Kuwait Finance House the eighth safest bank in the region.
Al-Rajhi Bank and Kuwait Finance House are the only two Islamic banks featured in the both the general and the regional lists.
