When Ross McEwan announced a restructuring of Royal Bank of Scotland’s corporate and institutional bank in February 2015, he set the tone for a year of change at Europe’s investment banks.

Along with the bank's 2014 results, the chief executive said RBS would be "radically reshaping" its investment bank after years of poor results - in 2014, the division lost £892 million. It would sell or shut down businesses in 25 countries, McEwan said, leaving it with a presence in 13, mostly in western Europe.