Aw diddums ...

It's a tough life being a banker.  Here is Douglas Flint, Chairman of HSBC, complaining about all the regulation bankers have to put up with:

The demands now being placed on the human capital of the firm and on our operational and systems capabilities are unprecedented. The cumulative workload arising from a regulatory reform programme that is unfortunately increasingly fragmented, often extra-territorial, still evolving and still adding definition is hugely consumptive of resources that would otherwise be customer facing. Add to this recent obligations to perform highly granular multiple stress tests which are inconsistent in definition and scenarios between major jurisdictions and so require considerable duplication of effort; recently announced significant wholesale market practice and competition reviews in the UK; re-organising the financial, operational and structural framework of the Group to respond to evolving thinking on cross-border resolution protocols; and, finally, planning what will be a multi-year project to separate and establish the ring-fenced bank in the UK, and the dimension of the execution risk is obvious.

To be clear, we are committed and resourced to deliver all of the above. But there is extremely limited spare capacity. Prioritisation, which is clearly critical, will require support and guidance from public policy and regulatory bodies, particularly in the UK, regarding the juxtaposition of the recently announced competition review and preparation for the creation of the ring-fenced bank. Equally important is delivery of the stated intention of the Financial Stability Board and the G20 to seek to draw a close on fresh regulatory initiatives by the end of this year.

Doncha feel sorry for the poor lambs?  Of course, it might have been less necessary to impose all that regulation, had it not been for all their past misdeeds - such as rigging LIBOR rates and mis-selling insurance policies, not to mention their role in the Great Crash.  And was it not HSBC that acted as a banker for a Mexican drug cartel?  And now, today, more evidence has come to light on how HSBC may have failed to observe the law in relation to consumer credit agreements.