For every working day of the past year, global regulators brought proceedings against an average of seven financial services professionals. As well as demonstrating a degree of ruthless efficiency, this highlights a growing and significant trend: individual accountability is rapidly rising to the top of the global regulatory agenda.

Duff & Phelps’ latest figures show financial regulators across the UK, USA and Hong Kong brought a record 1,761 proceedings against individuals in 2016. This represents an increase of nearly 100 cases since 2015. More than that, individuals faced over four times as many cases as companies.