As the great and the good of the worlds of politics, economics and finance gather at the Davos World Economic Forum this week, the meeting’s theme of “resilient dynamism” might look hopelessly optimistic for the banks that are in attendance.

The past year has seen lenders in many western markets continue to shrink their excessive pre-crisis balance sheets as they are lambasted all the while by the emergence of scandals ranging from Libor rate-rigging to Iran sanctions busting to Mexican money-laundering.

At the same time policy makers have continued to draft laws to make banking structures more secure, adding fresh regulations on capital and liquidity for good measure. The net result is a banking system in much of the world that may be on its way to being more resilient, but in the meantime is certainly not dynamic.