If you thought things were getting brutal at investment banks, then brace yourselves. For all of the tough talk and nasty headlines about slashing costs and culling jobs over the past few years, investment banks have been running hard to stand still.

As the prospect of a recovery in capital markets in the near future recedes, investment banks will need to rely more heavily on reducing costs to boost their profitability instead of relying on growth. But, with many of the most obvious cuts already made, they will have to come up with far more radical and imaginative ways to reduce their costs than they have so far dared.