We see more and more banks today combining and it has not stopped yet. This is a very competitive industry and will so many investment banks around, this business is hard fought.
Now it seems the least profitable business is treasury bond trading.
Because of this, salaries are doing down and other pressure is added by the electronic trading, which is becoming more popular. Employees are sent all over the world tracking down corporations in places like Seattle and Africa and in this way investment bankers must be the most global business out there. Many banks are being combined like Merrill Lynch taking Bank of America and Citigroup is seeing troubled balance sheet and is laying off many workers.
JP Morgan now rivals Goldman Sachs for the top investment bank and Deutsche Bank is steadily growing and is now in a position to compete with the world investment banking players.