Gail Kelly is one of them, and she is the chief executive of Westpac. She was previously the CEO of St George, a far smaller bank in Australia. When she arrived at Westpac she promptly bid for St George, a deal that shareholders will vote on this month. That's decisive action for you. One of Kelly's strengths is that a long time ago, in her native South Africa, she taught Latin. Remember my colleague Gillian Tett mentioning that the word credit was derived from the Latin for "I trust"? Latin teaching is a great background for a banker.

In Iceland, I am delighted that they have put women in charge of cleaning up the mess. Elin Sigfusdottir and Birna Einarsdottir have been appointed the chief executives of New Landsbanki and New Glitnir respectively, the nationalised banks created by the Icelandic government in the wake of the financial crisis. Where did they get them from? Iceland, a country with a population roughly the size of Doncaster, surely doesn't have cupboards full of female bankers waiting around for things to go wrong. The two women were both promoted from inside the banks that failed. Sigfusdottir has been head of corporate banking at Landsbanki since 2003 and Einarsdottir became head of domestic commercial banking at Glitnir last summer. (Thank goodness for modern word processors or I would never have got those names right.) The FT reported that the two women were "expected to curb the bonus-driven risk-taking culture that has taken hold in Iceland over the past five years".

Now, let's get one thing straight here. I don't believe that bonuses are a flawed compensation model. Surely any model that minimises fixed costs is a good one in troubled times. No, the problem with bonuses is that people have come to regard them as a given. Bonus is derived from the Latin for "good" - in other words a bonus is a treat. It should not be taken for granted.