With earnings so strong for the time being, there is pressure for money to be deployed either in share buybacks or special dividends or to go out and spend it.

The commercial rationale for cross-border mergers (in banking) remains a little tenuous and the evidence is not conclusive that cost and revenue synergies can be achieved.

One motivation that could be at the back of European minds is the danger of the American banks coming in.

So far there has been no doubt about who is taking over and who is running the show. It means that execution risk is kept at reasonably low levels.

It's not so much how much money you have to spend, it's how you spend it. How effective can you be in allocating those dollars, ... Obviously we don't have the margin for error like the Yankees do, but I think we're on our way here.

We've saved and we work hard for our money so we just want to make sure the money is working for us. Is it invested in the right types of things?