Do you sense that the wind has changed direction at HSBC? If you listen carefully, you might hear faint echoes of "and not before time, either".

When I started writing this column in 1996, HSBC Investment Bank and HSBC Markets in London were among my regular targets. These were two houses supported by a hugely rich parent bank, which had the potential to be on Formula One's front grid but which always sputtered and died as soon as someone waved the starting flag. "They could have been a bulge-bracket competitor but the result was always the seven-stone weakling who had sand kicked in his face," quipped a former Goldman Sachs partner.