Ghanaian banks are not in the top 90 of the new 2009 ranking of Africa's banks, a Paris based magazine, The Africa Reports, says in its latest October-November edition. Shrugging off the credit-crunch blues, Africa's bankers have bold expansion plans that will change the face of Africa's economies. Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya are spearheading the charge, creating banking groups large enough to gain economies of scale and flexible enough to reach the customers ignored by the subsidiaries of colonial-era banks. According to the ranking, Barclays Bank of Ghana occupies the 91st position thus becoming the biggest bank in Ghana. Barclays Bank was number 129 in the Magazine's 2007 ranking. It therefore gained 30 points in a year. Barclays Bank, according to the report has a total asset base of $1.2bn, net earnings of $130million, loans profile of $665million and total deposits of $1.0bn. Barclays Bank is closely followed by Ghana Commercial Bank as the number 111th on the list, while Standard Chartered Bank, Ecobank Ghana, Agricultural Development Bank, SG-SSB and Merchant Bank occupy the 114th, 127th, 153rd, 163rd and 174th positions respectively. Ghana Commercial Bank was in 2008 ranked number 100. It lost eleven points in the year. Standard Chartered Bank was 109th in 2008. It lost five points. National Investment Bank was ranked 184th in 2008, losing six points. According to the report, Ghana Commercial Bank has a total asset of $882.479million; net earnings of $137,476 million; loan profile of $425,842 and total deposits of $718,336. The first top 11 banks according to the report, are Standard Bank Group (South Africa), Standard Bank of South Africa, ABSA Group (South Africa), First Rand Banking Group (South Africa) and NED Bank Group (South Africa). Others are National Bank of Egypt, Bangue Exterieure D' Algerie(Algeria), Attijariwafa Bank of Morrocco, Credit Populaire Du Morocco,Credit, Gumhouria Bank (Libya) and Bangue Mar Du Commerce Exterieur (Morocco). According to "Africa Reports", the biggest bank on the African continent, Standard Bank Group; has total assets of $134bn; net earnings of $6bn; a loan of $83bn and deposits of $89bn. On the methodology used for compiling the report, the magazine said: "To create the ranking of Africa's 200 banks, we sent out questionnaires to 665 financial institutions. Their replies are used to create a systematic ranking of Africa's top 350 banks, based on total assets. We published only the top 200 banks in our list. All the data is communicated to us by the banks themselves or by their parent companies." Source: Today