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The World Economic Forum's recently-released Global Competitiveness Survey offers a bundle of indicators to show the health of a country's institutions.
One of those is the perceived safeness of banks.
WEF used its executive opinion survey to ask "in general, how do you perceive the soundness of banks?"
So the measure isn't based on any objective economic or accounting measure, but rather by the perceptions of the population. The countries are ranked from 1 (banks need more money) to 7 (banks are generally sound).
The survey showed that people in the UK and US really don’t trust their banking systems after the 2008 financial crisis. The UK was ranked 89 and the US came in at 49, below Honduras, Namibia and Peru.
We looked only at the 34 OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, which are all considered relatively developed economies with democratic systems.
11. Czech Republic — The Czech banking sector is unusual in that foreign-owned lenders dominate the industry, but consumers don't seem to mind, ranking them the 11th safest in the world.
REUTERS/David W Cerny
10. Switzerland – Although it scrapes into the top 10, people are losing faith with Swiss banks. The country's centuries-old tradition of banking secrecy is being rolled back, while the Swiss National Bank lost $51 billion this year as it abandoned its cap on the Swiss franc.
REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
9. Slovakia — Much like in the Czech Republic, foreign banking groups dominate Slovakia's finance industry, making up 90%. Austrian and Italian banks are the biggest players.
REUTERS/Radovan Stoklasa
8. Israel — In at number 8, Israel hasn't had a big banking crisis since 1983, which forced the government to step in. The state still remains a large shareholder in many private banks.
REUTERS/Ammar Awad
7. Luxembourg — It's no surprise Luxembourg scores highly, as the country is famous for its financial sector. Its Banque et Caisse d’Épargne de l’État is ranked as the ninth-safest bank in the world.
REUTERS/Francois Lenoir
6. Chile — Chile's banking sector is a good example of the positive effects of a crisis. The country's economic growth collapsed 13% in 1982 after a huge banking meltdown. New laws introduced in the 80s and 90s mean that now Chile has one of the strongest financial sectors in the world.
