survey conducted by the industry's leading magazine, The Banker.

Only in terms of asset size does the Bank of Bermuda beat its rival in a comprehensive comparison of both businesses.

But in areas of soundness, real profits growth, performance and return on assets, the Bank of Butterfield comes out on top.

Butterfield's chief general manager Mr. Michael Collier said yesterday he was "delighted'' with the outcome of the survey.

He was even more pleased with how his Bank had performed in the period since June 30, 1991, which was the date of the statistics used in the survey.

Despite being about half the asset size of its larger rival, the Bank of Butterfield made almost the same profit during fiscal 1992.

On assets of $3.4 billion, Butterfield made a profit this year of $26.9 million while the Bank of Bermuda, with assets of $6.3 billion, made a profit of $28.4 million.

The United Kingdom-based Banker magazine's survey of the world's largest 1,000 banks, which was released two months ago, is considered by the industry to be definitive.

The Bank of Bermuda is listed as the 684th largest bank in the world with assets of $5.83 billion as at June 30, 1991. The Bank of Butterfield is placed 813th with assets of $3 billion on the same date.

The full comparison between Bermuda's two largest banks is listed on this page.

Mr. Collier said his bank had made a conscious decision a few years ago to rely more on quality and less on asset growth.

In fact, the survey shows Butterfield's assets actually declining by 2.9 percent between 1990 and 1991.

"With a number of banks in the US and around the world having difficulties and a large shifting of people moving out of cash into other types of investments like bonds, unit trusts and treasuries, we weren't overly concerned at the lack of asset growth at that particular time,'' Mr. Collier said.

"Between June, 1990, and June, 1992, we have seen some asset growth and we're quite pleased about that. But our concern was quality. This is borne out in our results, particularly when you take into consideration that we're almost half the size of the Bank of Bermuda.'' The Bank's performance has been helped by a decision taken as far back as September, 1988, to place stricter control on the Bank's loans and put more focus on fee income and investment strategy.

He said: "We recognised we had to place a lot of attention to fee-based income, which is a far more steady income than the volatility which comes with fluctuations in the world's interest rates.'' This fluctuation in interest rates was one of the main reasons cited by the Bank of Bermuda president Mr. Donald Lines last week when he reported that his Bank had shown modest profit growth for fiscal 1992 of four percent.

Mr. Lines largely blamed low US interest rates for the Bank of Bermuda's 24 percent ($18.4 million) drop in net interest income to $57.6 million.

Other measures taken by the Bank of Butterfield to improve its performance included controlling expenses and expanding overseas, said Mr. Collier. He also praised the Bank's comprehensive staff training programme which was paid for out of an annual budget of well over $1 million.*l The Banker's survey used the latest information available at the time the listings were compiled. Figures relating to the Bank of Bermuda and the Bank of Butterfield were accurate as at June 30, 1991 but figures for other banks go as far back as December 31, 1990. The assessments of Bermuda's two largest banks are listed in full below.

BANK OF BERMUDA Rank (in asset terms) 684 Strength (Tier One Capital) $232 million Asset Size $5.83 billion Capital Assets Ratio 3.98% Profit $27 million Real Profits Growth -7.3% Profits on Capital 12.2% Return on Assets 0.47% BANK OF BUTTERFIELD Rank (in asset terms) 813 Strength (Tier One Capital) $173 million Asset Size $3 billion Capital Assets Ratio -2.9% Profit $21 million Real Profits Growth 2.3% Profits on Capital 12.8% Return on Assets 0.7%