(Jerry’s Comments: This post is courtesy of the Shocked Investor blog. Notice the rise of the Chinese banking system in the charts below.)

The Financial Times has a very interesting shockwave application showing how the top banks by market capitalization have changed for the last few years. You can clearly see the Goldman Sacks ascension and the decline of the American banks.

– In 2005 GS was ranked 19th out of the 20 largest. Today it is ranked 8th.
– In 2005 there were no Canadian or Brazilian banks in the top 20, today there are 4.
– In 2005 there were no Chinese banks, today there are 5.
– In 2005 there were 10 US banks in the top 20, today there are 3.

Please click on images to enlarge. $ shown are in Billions.

2005:

2006:

2007:

2008:

2009: