Depending on whom you believe, banks have either put the crisis behind them and are about to embark on a long-overdue recovery, or they have been scarred and will limp along for several more years.

Behind the scenes at the World Economic Forum in Davos, most bankers admit that their industry is undergoing a structural transformation, the likes of which has not been seen for a generation.The talk is of permanently lower and steady profitability - more like regulated utilities than the moneymaking machines portrayed in the film The Wolf of Wall Street. Some financiers predict the industry will be dominated by a few global financial powerhouses with very different business models.

Anshu Jain, co-chief executive of Deutsche Bank, told the Financial Times: “You will wind up with a huge concentration in the market, with the dominant groups in each area having higher volumes and a more utility-like model with lower cost of goods and more transparency, but still representing a good return on capital.”

Regulators are forcing banks to hold much more capital and to reduce their leverage, which is making some areas of business unprofitable. This is pushing some banks to quit those areas, either by selling them or shutting them down. The Volcker rule in the US is restricting banks from so-called ‘proprietary trading’, which is done with their own money, rather than on behalf of clients.

Furthermore, trading in derivatives and debt is shifting away from opaque over-the-counter markets, which have proved very profitable for banks, to more transparent exchanges. Many bankers are resigned to the fact that this will drive down prices.

Andrew McNally, UK chairman of Berenberg, the oldest German bank with a heritage stretching back to 1590, said: “To serve its social function of connecting capital with people and ideas, investment banking will go back to being a moving business [trading on behalf of clients] not a storage business [proprietary trading].”

US and European banks that are struggling to find growth will be forced to cut costs, according to Oliver Wyman, the consultancy. It pointed out that despite all the restructuring at banks in recent years the cost- income ratio of both European and US banks had still increased between 2006 and 2012 to above 60 per cent.

In a trend that is worrying regulators, some of the riskiest trading activities are moving into the less regulated shadow banking sector, made up of hedge funds and private equity among other vehicles.

At Davos, debate about the risks of China’s attempts to tighten liquidity and rein in its own rapidly expanding shadow banking sector has been lively. Steve Schwarzman, chief executive of the private equity group Blackstone, noted that shadow banking accounted for 30 per cent of the financial system in China.

“That’s a lot and it has come from nowhere and they are charging 10 or 11 per cent for loans, which shows how desperate people are for money there.”

European banks are also facing a tough year as they will be subjected to an asset quality review and stress test by the European Central Bank as a precursor to the establishment of a eurozone banking union.

There is scepticism over whether the stress test will expose the true condition of the banks’ balance sheets, especially after 2011 when Franco-Belgian lender Dexia was rubber-stamped as financially robust, only to need a third rescue.

This means that the ECB wants to ensure the process is rigorous without prompting panic in financial ­markets, or choking off already weak lending to companies.

Axel Weber, UBS chairman, warned that the hurdle facing some of Europe’s weaker lenders was a big one.

“I expect some of the banks to not pass the stress tests. I don’t think that markets at this point will provide sufficient capital, at least not for the banks that are in doubt.”

Just how much the crisis still haunts the banks was underlined by Antony Jenkins, chief executive of Barclays. “We still have a significant amount of work to conclude the implementation of all of the regulatory changes, and this will not happen until close to the end of this decade,” he said.

With all this on their plate, it is hardly surprising that bankers have little time to grapple with the next challenge: how to embrace the digital revolution some observers predict is about to overhaul their industry.