There rightly was significant public anger directed towards the banks and their “creative” business practices that led directly to the Global Financial Crisis. It is probably true to say that much of what banks do takes place away from regulatory gaze – no business on the planet is under constant scrutiny, of course – but this means that when a scandal is exposed, public outrage is heightened again. The latest bank to incur the public ire, and not for the first time, is German-based commercial banking giant Deutsche Bank (DB) (not to be confused with the German central bank Deutsche Bundesbank).

Deutsche Bank has been fined $630 million by UK and US regulators in connection to the bank's activities in what has been termed a Russian money laundering scheme. The scheme involved so-called mirror trades which took place between 2011 and 2015 (so the salutary lessons of banking impropriety during the Global Financial Crisis were not headed which will be a shock to us all) and involved some $10 billion worth of shares (with cash originating in Russia) traded through branches in Moscow, London and New York. The stocks were bought in local currency (Roubles) in Russia and these would be sold for the Dollar equivalent in the UK. The trades appear to be money laundering since security trades were used to convert Roubles to Dollars without any clear economic purpose, whilst evading compliance and applicable laws.

Deutsche Bank, which is co-operating with regulatory authorities, was fined $7.2 billion in a settlement with the US Justice Department in relation to its role in selling sub-prime debt in the run up to the Global Financial Crisis, so, in comparison, this fine is just a slap on the wrist.

Deutsche Bank is not alone in being fined for this type of activity: the Agricultural Bank of China was fined $215 million; Mega Bank of Taiwan has been fined $185 million; and Intesa Sanpaolo of Italy was fined $235 million.