More M&A deals in the offing

The need to build scale and diversify revenue streams continues to drive European banks' strong appetite for deals. European banking M&A reached a record high in 2025, marked by 10 major transactions worth more than €1 billion each that targeted other banks and asset managers — those megadeals had an aggregate transaction value of €45.77 billion.

Spain's Banco Santander SA was one of the key M&A players over the past year, with its acquisitions of Banco de Sabadell SA's UK unit, TSB Banking Group PLC, for $3.97 billion and Webster Financial Corp. in the US for $12.18 billion. The Webster purchase, Santander's largest M&A deal in more than 15 years, marked its continued pivot toward developed markets. These deals helped boost Santander's total assets to roughly $2.252 trillion, cementing its spot at No. 4 on the list.

For the latest ranking, company assets were adjusted on a best-efforts basis for pending mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, as well as M&A deals that closed after the end of the period. To be eligible for inclusion in pro forma adjustments, the amount of assets being transferred had to be at least $2 billion, unless otherwise noted. Assets reported by non-US-dollar filers were converted to dollars using period-end exchange rates. Total assets were taken on an "as-reported" basis, and no adjustments were made to account for differing accounting standards. The majority of banks were ranked by total assets as of Dec. 31, 2025. In the previous ranking, published April 9, 2025, most company assets were as of Dec. 31, 2024, and were adjusted for pending and completed M&A as of April 3, 2025.

Domestic rival Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA did not achieve similar success on the deals front; its proposed bid for Sabadell failed to materialize. BBVA will now be "purely focused on organic growth," CEO Onur Genç said in October 2025.

Italian bank UniCredit SpA, meanwhile, remains focused on its M&A push despite being forced to abandon its €15 billion takeover bid for smaller peer Banco BPM SpA. UniCredit ramped up its cross-border pursuit of Commerzbank AG by offering €35 billion to break a stalemate with the German lender.

UniCredit rose two notches to rank 14th on the list with $1.022 trillion in total assets, while BBVA also climbed two places to 15th with $1.006 trillion in total assets.

British bank Barclays PLC is expected to hunt for M&A opportunities after recently losing out to NatWest Group PLC in the bidding for wealth manager Evelyn Partners Group Ltd. Barclays is projected to have an M&A war chest of roughly £3.6 billion, according to RBC Capital Markets estimates.

Barclays sat in the No. 5 spot with $2.078 trillion in assets, while NatWest dropped two notches to 16th.

Santander's Webster deal came on the heels of a surge in cross-border M&A deals, most notably Austria-based Erste Group Bank AG's acquisition of most of Santander's Polish operations for €7 billion and France-based Groupe BPCE's €6.4 billion purchase of Portugal's Novo Banco SA. More recently, Austria's Raiffeisen Bank International AG clinched a deal to acquire BBVA's Romanian unit for €591 million.

Biggest movers

Sberbank of Russia climbed six notches to the 18th spot with $870.03 billion in total assets, while Russian peer VTB Bank PJSC rose three places to rank 30th with $466.33 billion in total assets. Gazprombank JSC joined the list, placing 46th.

Italy's BPER Banca SpA rose five spots to No. 43, while Erste moved up four spots to place 26th.

Sabadell dropped five places to No. 44 with $227.17 billion in total assets, while Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Ziraat Bankasi AS slipped three notches to No. 47.

Bank of Ireland Group PLC and AIB Group PLC fell to the bottom of the list.

Overall, 20 of the 50 banks on the list ranked lower than the previous year, while 11 ranked higher. One bank entered the list while the rest retained their spots.

At the country level, France and the UK were home to 12 banks on the list, each with six banks. The French banks, which are all in the top 20, had the highest combined assets of $12.522 trillion. The UK banks had $8.950 trillion in aggregate assets.

Spain had four banks with combined assets of $4.265 trillion. Germany and Italy each had five banks on the list, with assets totaling $3.887 trillion and $2.915 trillion, respectively.