As job cuts continue apace, banks are running the knife ever higher up the corporate ladder. As the head of one European investment bank said last week, years of poor management are now coming back to bite the banks.

During the first few years of the credit crunch, banks came to the creeping realisation that they would have to do something about their bloated cost bases. But they were overly fixated on headcount and took the somewhat cowardly and short-sighted decision to axe more junior staff.