Large banks risk getting caught in "perpetual" cycle of bankruptcy like aerospace companies and carmakers unless they radically alter the way they do business, according to a leading industry consultant.

Alix Partners, one of the most influential advisers to senior banking executives, warns that global investment banks must tackle head-on issues such as bonuses and their addiction to the "steroids" of debt-fuelled growth. "Just look at the auto manufacturing and commercial aviation industries, where over the past two decades, changes in regulatory and operating environments combined to render formerly solid businesses into perpetual wards of the bankruptcy court," said the consultants.

According to Alix, investment banks still pay their staff far too much, pointing out that the "overpayment effect" last year was $18bn (£11bn), or close to 30pc of the world's top 15 banks' combined pre-tax profits. Senior bankers agree lenders must change their ways if they are survive. The head of one major British bank said he agreed with the findings and that those businesses, which did not adapt to the new world, would "die". "There was a major change in 2008 and a lot of people seem to be acting like it never happened. The choice is pretty stark; you can either carry on as you are and disappear into irrelevance, or you can change. There is no other option," he said.....Read more here on this story: Banks at risk of 'perpetual' cycle of bankruptcy, warns Alix