António Horta-Osório receives a knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.

With monetary union off the table, a national break-up could make Brexit seem like a skirmish.

António Horta-Osório makes no apology for the unbridled optimism that has defined his 10 years running Lloyds Banking Group. Critics say he leaves it over-exposed to Brexit and dwindling interest margins. But, as he prepares to move to Switzerland to become chairman of Credit Suisse, Horta-Osório tells Euromoney that Lloyds’ greatest days could still be ahead of it.

Less charismatic chief executives will serve Europe’s banks well in the 2020s – unless it simply means that more power will reside with their chairmen.

Jean Pierre Mustier and António Horta-Osório join Tidjane Thiam as the outsiders who rescued national champions before departing.

Lloyds Banking Group’s ‘Helping Britain prosper’ plan, launched four years ago, has put corporate responsibility at the top of the UK bank’s priorities. It was a bold initiative, addressing Britain’s housing needs, helping people plan for the future, helping businesses to start up and grow, championing diversity, supporting clean energy and tackling social disadvantage. It earns Lloyds the award for western Europe’s best bank for corporate responsibility.

Next month, all UK employers with more than 250 workers must disclose the gender pay gaps for both salary and bonus.

UK banks scraped through the latest stress tests with no need to raise capital, but add a disorderly Brexit onto recession and overseas investor flight, and they could face serious trouble.

A decade after the great panic of August 2007, a harbinger of the global financial crisis that followed, Euromoney brings together chief executives of three firms almost brought down by the credit crunch. We ask them to share their recollections of that time, discuss key lessons learned and debate the likelihood of a new crisis, the banking industry’s ability to withstand it and how to improve regulation.

With Brexit now upon us, as warnings abound of the damage it will inflict on the UK economy and the country’s financial sector, Euromoney follows its instincts and puts two British banks on our short list to be recognized as the world’s best.

Many banks now say cash management is the heart of their business, not just for the returns it can generate in its own right but also for the opportunity to pump other products and services through their networks. Euromoney’s survey reveals banks still have a lot of work to do to turn aspiration into reality

From the depths of a government bailout, Lloyds Banking Group has been transformed into a leaner, more focused, less risky and highly profitable business – and a clear national champion.

The agreement between Standard Chartered and Lloyds Bank to allow the latter to directly issue letters of credit locally in some 20 Asian markets and benefit from local currency settlement – using the emerging-market-focused bank’s infrastructure – has been touted as a win-win arrangement for both lenders. But the deal is not without its downsides.

When António Horta-Osório took over Lloyds Banking Group in 2011, a once great institution was on its knees. The scale of the challenge he faced surprised even the new chief executive. Two-and-a-half years later, Lloyds is in the black, posting £2.1 billion in first-half profit, paving the way for the UK government to divest its 39% stake and begin discussions with regulators over resuming dividends. Euromoney tells the inside story of one of the great post-financial crisis turnarounds.

The trickle of Q3 results continues with interim numbers released by Société Générale, BNP Paribas, Lloyds and, late in the week, RBS.

Of the interim results published in the second half of the week it was the Barclays Capital figures that impressed most. FICC income for the first half of 2010 was £4.948 billion. While this was a 40% decline relative to the more volatile first half of 2009, it is the only set of results that bears any sort of comparison with figures for the major US banks. For example, Goldman Sachs’s FICC revenue for the year to the end of June is $21.75 billion (£13.7 billion), compared with BarCap’s FICC revenue for the same period of £10.4 billion.