As the year draws to an end for Wall Street and the City of London, there is still little sign of the financial services industry managing to restore its reputation in the eyes of taxpayers who bailed out banks two years ago.
Having grown to outsize proportions in the economies of the US and UK, investment banks are finding it hard and painful to shrink. But shrink they must, both in terms of leverage and the risks they take, if they are to regain their legitimacy.
Many bankers still struggle to accept the enormity of what happened, and the implications of having had to be rescued by governments. They would like simply to return to the old bonus culture, with few questions asked.