Last week's decision by Britain's Barclays Bank to stop trying to become a force in global investment banking is a testament to that industry's growing impregnability.
Top players such as Wall Street's Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs are consolidating at a dizzying speed to ensure they stay dominant.
For Barclays chief executive Martin Taylor, the turning point came two weeks ago with the US$9 billion merger between Salomon Brothers and Traveler's Inc, which owns Smith Barney.
The deal clearly showed the so-called bulge bracket banks making sure they stayed at the top by getting even bigger.
For upstarts such as Barclays de Zoete Wedd (BZW), it would become increasingly costly to compete.
European banks have effectively been presented with three choices.