On the evening of November 27 (local time, the UK), British magazine The Banker officially revealed the winners of its "Bank of the Year Awards 2014" in London. ICBC stood out amid fierce competition with various global peers, and won three awards at one stroke – "Bank of the Year – global and regional winners", "Bank of the Year – Asia-Pacific" and "Bank of the Year – China", becoming the first commercial bank in Asia crowned "Bank of the Year" in the global category. It was also the tenth time the Bank was awarded "Bank of the Year – China", and the second time it won the "Bank of the Year – Asia-Pacific" award.

Since 2000, The Banker has started rating and selecting the "best banks" at the global, continental and national levels, with only one winner at each level each year. As one of the world's most prestigious and influential rankings of the banking industry, The Banker's awards have always been under the spotlight of the international financial community. In the past 14 years, the award "Bank of the Year – global and regional winners" has been dominated by banks from Europe (10 times) and North America (4 times). This year, ICBC, with its extraordinary performance, has not only broken the monopoly established by European and North American banks over the award, but also set a number of first-time records: becoming the first commercial bank in Asia awarded "Bank of the Year" at the global level; and the first commercial bank that won all the above three awards simultaneously.

Industry insiders point out that the triple-win of ICBC in this world-class ranking event initiated by The Banker has fully demonstrated that the comprehensive strength and international standing of the Chinese banking industry has risen to world-leading levels, and also shown the recognition by the global financial sphere of the reform and development results of Chinese commercial banks.

First of all, the magazine pointed out in its explanation for the rankings that, "European and American banks have seen their operating results drop somewhat in recent years, due to the slow economic recovery in the euro zone and the United States. Lately, a number of major international banks in Europe and America were heavily fined by regulatory authorities in succession, as a result of their compliance irregularities, which severely dented their profits. On the contrary, with the development of the Chinese economy, its banking sector has risen rapidly, and gradually overtaken their European and American peers in terms of capital strength and profitability." According to the 2014 rankings of Top 1000 World Banks released in July, ICBC ranked first consecutively with tier-one capital of USD 207.614 billion. Tier-one capital is a key indicator used to measure the business development capacity and risk tolerance of commercial banks, as well as a major safeguard for them to realize sustainable development. A review of the rankings in the last ten years shows that there was not even a trace of China's banking industry in the top-10 league in 2004, until 2007 when ICBC and BOC made into the top ten for the first time. During the ten years, the average ranking of ICBC, ABC, BOC and CCB has climbed from 28th in 2004 to 5th in 2014. The ranking data also show that ICBC ranked first consecutively in the global banking sector with total assets of USD 3.1 trillion. At the same time, its NPL ratio was the lowest among the top 20 world banks by total assets, 2.56 percentage points lower than the average of the top 20, 7.67 percentage points lower than the one with the highest NPL ratio.

Moreover, The Banker added that ICBC has adhered to a stable and healthy development approach as well as an internationalized development strategy focusing on persistently serving Chinese enterprises "going global" and supporting the RMB internationalization, As its global service network has been improving, ICBC promoted localized and sustainable development of its overseas institutions. This also explained why the Bank won the top award.