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Next year, $1.5 trillion of bank deposits will lose an unlimited government guarantee granted during the financial crisis, and boutique firms are offering new shelters for the cash.

U.S. banks are ending the year with their best profits since 2006 and fewer failures than at any time since the 2008 financial crisis.

UBS on Wednesday became the first big global bank in more than two decades to have a subsidiary plead guilty to fraud. UBS, the Swiss bank, scrambled until the last minute to avoid that fate. A week ago, in a bid for leniency over interest-rate manipulation, the bank’s chairman traveled to Washington to plead his case to the Justice Department, according to people briefed on the matter. Knowing the long odds, the chairman, Axel Weber, asked the criminal division for a lighter punishment.

The Swiss financial giant UBS is close to finalizing a settlement with authorities over the manipulation of interest rates, a deal that is expected to include at least $1 billion in fines.

HSBC, the British banking giant, will pay $1.9 billion to settle a money-laundering probe by federal and state authorities in the United States, a law enforcement official said Monday.

Standard Chartered expects to pay $330 million to settle a case with U.S. regulators who accused the Asia-focused bank of failing to comply with sanctions against Iran,further denting profit growth this year.

Bank of America has shelved plans for new fees that could have hit at least 10 million customers by the end of this year, skirting a potential replay of a 2011 uproar over consumer-banking charges.

Britain named Canadian central bank chief Mark Carney on Monday as the next governor of the Bank of England, springing the surprise choice of a foreigner to help steer the world's sixth-largest economy out of stagnation.

Among first-lien mortgages that received a principal reduction, borrowers had their loan balances cut by an average of $117,000, according to the independent monitor established to ensure that banks were meeting the terms of a settlement agreed to in March.

Major banks have announced some 160,000 job cuts since early last year and with more lay-offs to come as the industry restructures, many will leave the shrinking sector for good as redundancies outpace new hires by roughly two-to-one.