Before the financial crisis, the attitude at investment banks was ‘go big, or go home’. Today, these same institutions are locking the doors, barring the gates, cutting headcount and jettisoning business lines. According to analysts at Bernstein Research, this is a big mistake for Barclays.

Barclays has been undergoing something of a PR nightmare. Scandals around Libor, PPI, and the mis-selling of interest-rate swaps to SMEs have all hit the bank over the past year. Ongoing investigations into 2008 capital injections from Qatar took a fresh turn today after the Financial Times reported that Barclays may have loaned Qatari investors money to buy the bank's shares.