World's Top 10 Largest Banks

A bank is a financial institution and a financial intermediary that accepts deposits and channels those deposits into lending activities, either directly or through capital markets. A bank connects customers that have capital deficits to customers with capital surpluses.

Banks offer a number of services ranging from retail banking to investment banking, industrial crediting, asset and wealth management, credit cards services and much more.

Here is the list of 10 of the world's largest banks based on market capitalization as of January 20, 2012 : Chinese banks occupy the top positions and have four of the top seven banks, including top two.