Regulation has become the number one topic for heads of banks in the UK, Europe and the US alike. Large institutions have spent the years since the eruption of the financial crisis trying to cater for and react to the ever-expanding scope of rules both at home and elsewhere.

It has marked a new era for a sector that had become increasingly globalised since the Big Bang of the 1980s but which has, in recent years, seemed more at risk of becoming localised once more as banks focus on core products and core geographies amid more onerous regulation.