Euan Harkness is often seen as a banker of the old style, but he is no stick-in-the-mud.

Hans-Joerg Rudloff, doyen of the Euromarket, has positioned himself perfectly for next year's skyburst of activity in euro debt financing.

What more proof could there be that banking stays in the blood? After a five-year stint as chairman of the UK's Securities & Investments Board (SIB), Sir Andrew Large is returning to the coal face by becoming Sir Peter Middleton's replacement as deputy chairman at Barclays.

Now that the high profile equity and corporate finance advisory parts of BZW have been sold, members of the surviving debt markets division, Barclays Capital, have a tricky time ahead. They must convince their customers that the advantages of dealing with a fully integrated investment bank - advantages which they loudly proclaimed for the 11 years in which Barclays spent £750 million ($1.2 billion) trying to build such a creature - are bunk. Now they must argue that the best type of investment bank to deal with is one focused on its chosen strengths. But the question persists: does Barclays Capital have any strengths beyond sterling bonds and syndicated loans? Even while peddling their new line, those at Barclays Capital must privately question how deep is their own parent's commitment to its new-form investment bank.

On October 3, Barclays chief executive Martin Taylor announced he was selling the equities and corporate finance divisions of his investment bank BZW. Only five weeks earlier he'd hired a high-profile banker to head BZW France. And only a year ago Taylor lured Bill Harrison from Robert Fleming to revamp the very divisions he's now put on the block. What went wrong? And what does it say about British banking's most celebrated chief executive? By Antony Currie.