The largest banks in the US and Europe have paid $14.62bn to settle regulatory investigations and redress customers this year, demonstrating just how strongly financial regulators on both sides of the Atlantic have been cracking down in 2012.

UBS's roughly $1.5bn settlement with Swiss, US and UK regulators to resolve Libor-related investigations became the latest in a sweep of fines for banks this year, drawing to close a damaging 12 months for the industry.