The British public could justifiably claim to have been let down by their bankers. In late June, a computer problem meant that RBS and its subsidiaries were unable to process numerous client banking transactions for several days. Then in early July, it transpired that Barclays bankers were running amok manipulating a key customer benchmark rate. And now in late July, we learn that HSBC has been cosying up to some of the world’s most undesirable individuals and that the bank’s client records might be synonymous with the FBI’s most wanted list.

Bankers were in subdued mood when they gathered in early July for Euromoney’s 2012 Awards for excellence dinner. Bob Diamond’s abrupt resignation a few days’ earlier was on everyone’s mind. And anxiety about the Libor rigging investigations cast a pall on proceedings. "It feels as if the industry itself is on trial," one guest murmured. Another 50-something senior banker was more vehement: "I don’t think this blood-letting will stop until my whole generation has been forced to step down."

Bob Diamond resigned from Barclays on July 3 and as I write this, some three weeks later, bankers are starting to talk in hushed tones about the "Libor rigging scandal" being the financial industry’s "tobacco moment".

HSBC’s advertising slogan for many years was the "world’s local bank", now media headline writers are dubbing the bank: "The world’s local money launderer". Always considered conservative, well run and frankly a bit stodgy, HSBC has stumbled badly. And we are all like stunned moles blinking in the sunlight, following a 340-page report from a US Senate subcommittee accused HSBC of laundering cash for terrorists, drug barons and dictators through many of its subsidiaries.

As Facebook fights back – at least in terms of stalling its sagging share price – controversy continues to rage as to who is to blame for the inept IPO. On June 15, a month after the IPO date, Facebook shares languished 20% below their offering price of $38. Many are fingering the stock exchange, Nasdaq, as culprit in chief. For all that Nasdaq chief Bob Greifeld has come out since with his own mea culpa, saying he and his colleagues "owe the industry an apology", I am not so sure.

The Facebook IPO no doubt cast a pall on the summer sunshine for senior Morgan Stanley executives. However, another bank that has had a torrid time recently is Credit Suisse. This is a little unexpected. The bank was a distinct winner from the 2008 crisis: it did not take government money and seemed to adapt quickly to the changing environment. However the share price performance in the past two years has been disastrous – it is down more than 60% since early August 2010 and now trades below its 2009 trough, close to a two-decade low. Other leading global banks have suffered, but not as much. Over the same period, JPMorgan’s share price is down by some 10% and HSBC shares are about 15% lower.

Life is full of surprises: big and little, nice and not so nice. I am trying to sell my apartment in London. One rainy Thursday morning, I flung open the front door to see my estate agent, Simon; an elderly diminutive man so shabbily dressed that I thought he might be a tramp; and a younger, larger man. "Can I please show my client around?" Simon asked politely. "Of course," I replied. "But as it’s pouring with rain, please take your shoes off." There was a stunned silence and then they took their shoes off and the tramp strode into my kitchen and proceeded to inspect the rest of my flat. After the tour was complete, the group gathered in the vestibule and I overheard the agent saying oleaginously to the supposed tramp: "Aha, so you think it’s too small for you." And the group trooped off into the rain.

Bob Diamond’s appearance before the Treasury Select Committee was culture clash TV. But the MPs failed to score on the most important issue: the swash-buckling, high octane, risk-taking culture that Diamond created at Barclays Capital led to, indirectly, the Libor scandal and more

Last month I mused about the 2012 compensation for Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond and whether the large package was justified. I received some interesting feedback on this topic. One source pointed out that a large part of the £20 million number I had referred to was vesting shares, accumulated during previous years when Diamond was head of the investment bank. Source went on to state that if Diamond and his advisers were more in touch with sentiment in the country, they might have realized that even though every item of the compensation package could be justified, it was simply not appropriate to snaffle all the moolah at once. "Why not put some of it in a charitable foundation?" source queried. "Or put it in trust until the share price rises by 30% so investors feel good about Diamond getting paid?"

Some stories cause you to raise an eyebrow, others make you gasp out loud. In the past year, there have been a few gasp-out-loud stories.

In my last column, I predicted that the over-hyped Facebook initial public offering was an ominous sign for the health of equity markets. Nevertheless, Facebook and flop were not words I expected to see in the same sentence. I was wrong. I’ve watched some deals backfire during my time as a Euromoney columnist: the listings of Bumi and Blackstone come to mind as well as Prudential’s grandiose plan in 2010 to purchase AIA, the former Asian arm of AIG. But the Facebook IPO is one of the biggest collapsed soufflés of them all.

As if Dimon’s fall from grace wasn’t bad enough, markets are also battling with Grexit demons. ‘Grexit’ is a new word that has entered the financial lexicon along with ‘financial repression’ and ‘the great recession’.

Someone whom I’m sure is of similar mind is Stuart Gulliver, chief executive of HSBC. Since ascending to the Tai Pan role, Gulliver has kept a studiously low profile while sticking to plan A. In May 2011, Gulliver announced the results of a strategic review that could have been entitled: "Focus is the price to pay for excellence."

The Abigail with attitude column hosted one of its quarterly round-table dinners this month. Several of the UK’s most senior bankers mingled with a media mogul and some veteran continental financiers. A few points linger in my mind. First, there was a general anxiety about the potential for significant social disruption in Europe as austerity programmes bite and youth unemployment spirals ever higher. Secondly, some senior bankers are still in denial about the reasons why they are deeply disliked. "It’s all the fault of the press," one banker moaned. "They are stirring up the people and the politicians against us." Media mogul responded firmly. "No," he said. "The people are angry because billions of taxpayers’ money was spent to bail out the banks. Ordinary people’s standard of living has gone down: taxes are up, inflation is up, wages are stagnant yet bank bosses continue to earn millions. Bankers need to justify their role and worth to society." I know whose side I am on in this debate. What do you think?

Ian Hannam is someone whose personal brand has benefited, not suffered, from his recent actions. Until recently chairman of global capital markets at JPMorgan Cazenove, he resigned in April after the UK Financial Services’ Authority published its decision that he had been guilty of market abuse.

Of course, there is another big IPO coming to a screen near you shortly. I am talking about the phenomenal Facebook deal, which is veiled under a hefty shroud of secrecy but which seems to be scheduled for the launch pad in mid-May. I wonder if that will mark the peak of the equity market this year? Morgan Stanley is the lead underwriter for this fiercely contended deal.

Last month, I had lunch with a former City trader who is a trustee of a big investment bank’s pension fund. Trader was gloomy. "Returns are abysmal," he wailed. "Pension funds can’t function when the risk-free rate on 10-year UK gilts is 2.2%, equity markets have gone nowhere for a decade and inflation is running at 3.5%." Trader confessed that in his bleakest moments he could see a situation where funds were not able to honour their obligations to those who enjoy favourable defined-benefit schemes."And governments will have to find billions in the next decades to make good the holes in the western civil service pension schemes," he said glumly as he speared a lettuce leaf.

It is good to see the Bull charging back. In late April, Bank of America Merrill Lynch announced that it had hired Alex Wilmot-Sitwell from UBS as its new president of Europe and the emerging markets ex Asia. For those of you who have short memories, UBS hired one of Merrill’s top bankers, Andrea Orcel, merely a month ago to be co-head of the investment bank. Since then, Orcel has persuaded several other senior Merrill bankers to join him at UBS: Javier Oficialdegui, Javier Martinez-Piqueras and Emilio Greco.

Some are calling him ‘bloated Bob’. Others prefer the prefix ‘bountiful’. I would suggest the adjectives ‘baffling’ and ‘burnished’.

This column usually focuses on the big people in the industry. But in March it was a little person who roiled the markets. Greg Smith, a mid-level Goldman Sachs employee, and his vehement exit letter, masquerading as a New York Times opinion-editorial took everyone by surprise. The piece went viral and another new word was spawned in the Goldman Sachs lexicon. ‘Muppet’ joined ‘vampire squid’.

Goldman Sachs has a problem but so does Bank of America. In late March, the chairman of banking and markets, Andrea Orcel, departed abruptly to take up a post as co-head of UBS’s investment bank. Commentators were surprised. Orcel had been at Merrill Lynch for two decades. Hailed as one of the top rainmakers of his generation, he had recently concluded the important UniCredit rights issue, on which Merrill acted as the global coordinator.

For a while now, I have commented that the Goldman brand is broken. Don’t forget that a lot of senior people are leaving the firm. Think: Ed Eisler, David Heller, Chris Barter and Raj Sethi. This exodus reflects the fact that investment banking is no longer much fun or extremely well paid.

Deals are more than numbers and synergies – they’re about the people involved. If the Glencore and Xstrata deal goes through, it will have a big effect on the M&A league tables but it might also stumble over a regulatory fence on the way. Abigail Hofman dissects the possible creation of a $90 billion conglomerate

I must admit that the cacophony surrounding Stephen Hester’s bonus has taken me aback. In late January, Royal Bank of Scotland decided to award its chief executive a near-£1 million bonus for 2011 in addition to his £1.2 million salary which, under enormous media and political pressure, Hester was forced to decline.

By industry standards, Hester deserved a bonus from RBS; by political imperative, he should never have agreed to accept it. But could this dreadful saga be a mere warm-up for bank bonus season in the UK and beyond?

In the run-up to Christmas, I met up with three bank chief executives. This opening sounds a bit like a line from the carol The 12 days of Christmas. In that case, it would be followed by a chorus of "and a partridge in a pear tree". I found the chiefs weary after an unexpectedly tough year. One was recovering from flu, another had suffered a nasty bout of pneumonia and the third looked shattered.

Abigail Hofman has consistently called for Nomura to rethink its global strategy. What was behind the sudden departure of Jesse Bhattal, and what needs to happen next?

With deals still hard to come by, what can investment bankers do when they have nothing to do? And what was behind Michel Peretié’s sudden departure from SocGen?

Who’d be a bank chief executive? Most fear that 2012 will make a tough 2011 seem like a cake-walk; and it could be the year of the chop at the top of the industry