For European and US banks, the hits just keep on coming. In the past few weeks we have had the publication of the Vickers report that could usher in the biggest shake-up to the UK banking industry since the Big Bang, the downgrading of two of the largest French banks, the continuing slide into a full-blown eurozone sovereign debt crisis and the outing of an alleged rogue trader at UBS.

All this bad news is playing out against a backdrop of longer-term, more existential worries about capital adequacy, return on equity and strategic direction.