FN has pulled together the numbers showing how the financial services industry has changed since a fateful day in early August a decade ago

On August 9, 2007, BNP Paribas Investment Partners suspended valuations and closed the gates on two funds because of the deteriorating US sub-prime mortgage market.

Many working in and around financial markets have this date circled in their calendars as the official start of a global credit crunch that gave way to one of the worst financial crises in history.

There had been other warning signs: Bear Stearns had shut two big hedge funds that June, while in February, a profit warning from HSBC had specifically mentioned US mortgages.

But the BNP Paribas decision stands out because shortly afterward the European Central Bank thrust €95bn of emergency liquidity into the region’s banking system in the hope of shoring things up.

That unprecedented move could not prevent what was to follow, however, and little more than a year later Lehman Brothers had collapsed and billions of dollars in writedowns were being reported, with state bailouts and emergency banking mergers the necessary remedies.

The crisis ushered in a new era of financial regulation and loose monetary policy that continues to affect everything from banking revenues, compensation and staff numbers to fund manager performance, pension deficits and the life cycles of private equity funds.

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