Banks are talking a good game about playing to their strengths. But a real differentiation of business models at the top of the industry has not happened yet.

China RMB debate: The renminbi’s road to full internationalization

A string of Fed announcements and decisions has baffled US markets and bank decision makers.

Goldman Sachs was under siege two years ago, but its clients have stuck with it. It tops the M&A advisory and ECM league tables, and when its clients want debt deals, it can do those too. Chief executive Lloyd Blankfein expresses pride at the firm’s stability. But although Goldman hasn’t undergone the soul-searching many competitors have endured while seeking out their new, post-crisis, Basle III business models, its universal bank competitors ask if Goldman’s focus is too narrow.

The new criticism of Goldman is that it is too narrow a franchise, not that it trades against its clients. Monoline is the new proprietary. “Goldman had a great year in equities but it wasn’t an equities year,” says the head of commercial and investment banking at a large universal bank.

Understanding what Wells Fargo means to the wholesale banking industry is something of a riddle. This is a firm that ranked eighth for the first sixth months of 2013 in terms of all investment banking revenue for the Americas, ahead of such rivals as Deutsche Bank and Jefferies. In debt capital markets it ranks fourth, ahead of Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Barclays, according to data from Dealogic.

It’s the most successful bank of the post-financial crisis generation. But alongside numbers that make its rivals green with envy, it maintains a steadfastly old-fashioned approach to the business of banking. Is this what a model modern bank should look like? Or is there more to Wells Fargo than meets the eye?

PRESS RELEASE Wells Fargo was named best global bank at the Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2013 dinner in London tonight. It is the first time that the US-based bank has won this coveted award.

Since 1992 Euromoney, the world’s leading financial markets magazine, has singled out the outstanding institutions in finance. Over the years, the Awards for Excellence have evolved with the markets they cover. They now incorporate 25 global awards for banking and capital markets; and awards for the best banks and securities houses in almost 100 countries around the world.

The conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has been lucrative for the US government, but it can’t run the US mortgage market forever.

The UK bank is the best performer by market value growth during the past 18 months, edging out Bank of America; RBS and Brazilian banks are the worst performers in the first six months of 2013.

Retail investors fled the credit markets during June, following the jump in US treasuries amid fears over Fed policy. But life insurers and pension funds, spotting desperately needed higher absolute yields, have been selectively buying.

Agency to apply corporate rating experience to smaller firms to stimulate greater investor participation.

Few external candidates look credible successors to Stephen Hester.

Signs of a U-turn in thinking at the top could see bank balance sheets finally cleaned up in ‘Europe’s Takenaka moment’, according to analysts at Berenberg Bank, warning a more punitive leverage ratio could take markets by surprise.