Bank of America has leap-frogged United States rival JPMorgan to rank as the world's top bank in terms of capital strength while the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China tops the profit league, according to a new study.

BofA topped The Banker magazine's 2010 ranking of the world's banks, based on Tier 1 capital.

Its Tier 1 capital rose by a third from last year to US$160 billion, which saw it swap places with JPMorgan, whose Tier 1 capital dipped 2 percent to US$133 billion.

BofA, which is based in Raleigh, North Carolina, and bulked up with the purchase of Merrill Lynch in 2008 as the financial crisis raged, headed The Banker's first ever Top 1000 list published 40 years ago, which was based on assets rather than capital.

Citgroup ranked third in the latest list, followed by Britain's Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC.

The magazine uses Tier 1 capital as a measure of a bank's ability to lend on a large scale and endure shocks.

ICBC topped the rankings for 2009 pretax profit after earning US$24.5 billion, ahead of China Construction Bank on US$20.3 billion.

US investment bank Goldman Sachs was No. 3 with US$19.8 billion profit, and Barclays was Europe's most profitable bank with US$18.9 billion.

The biggest loss was posted by Anglo Irish Bank with an US$18.5 billion hit. GMAC, the US financial services firm majority owned by the US government, and Citi followed with respective losses of US$10.3 billion and US$8.4 billion, according to the rankings.

Profits for the top 1,000 banks were almost four times higher than in 2008, but returns have fallen sharply from the boom years, the data showed.

US banks swung to a US$37.5 billion profit last year from a US$91 billion loss, while British banks recovered to a US$29.5 billion profit from a US$51 billion loss, and EU banks rebounded to a US$103.8 billion profit from a US$16 billion loss in 2008.

Japan's banks lost US$11.1 billion last year after making profits of US$16.5 billion previously.