The global banking industry is almost unrecognisable from 12 months ago. The destruction of billions of dollars of capital has led to the disappearance of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers on Wall Street and the part-nationalisation of some of the UK’s biggest banks.

In Europe too the landscape has changed. Fortis has been broken up and Hypo Real, Germany’s second largest mortgage lender, has been bailed out by the government. Japanese banks have re-emerged as a powerful force in international banking having steered clear of the worst excesses of the subprime crisis in the US.