Maybe it's the first sign of the green shoots of recovery. Britain's banks are suddenly a frenetic hive of activity, each apparently seeking to outdo the others by being first to the big move that will signal the end of the rolling crises that have overhung them since, well, the crisis.
It might be recovery. But on the other hand it might just be the beginning of another phase of the crisis. It's hard to tell at the moment.
The big three - Barclays, Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) - are each probing a solution to the problems that have plagued them since 2008: the need for capital, the problems of having a dominant shareholder and the leadership challenge all three have endured.
I am not including HSBC here, although indeed the bank does face some of these problems, for the simple reason that it alone avoided the pressure to pull in outside shareholders at the height of the crisis, while the other three succumbed.
Barclays beat the others to it last week with the announcement of a £5.8 billion (Dh32.3bn) rights issue to bridge a gap largely caused by new banking regulations, themselves designed to bolster banks' balance sheets against a repetition of 2008.
Back then, Barclays managed to avoid having to go to the UK government cap in hand, but only because it got bailed out mainly by Middle East investors to the tune of £11.8bn.
It will be hoping the new fundraising - on the back of an improving share price - will not cause the regulatory problems the previous one did.
Lloyds is also struggling with legacy of a shareholder bail-out, although in this case the shareholder in question is the British government, which holds a 39 per cent stake in the bank.
Lloyds is regarded as something of a special case in British banking circles.
It is probably the most high street of the four banks that used to have that description and added an extra retail element when it was forced to take over Halifax Bank of Scotland during the crisis.
For this reason, Lloyds will probably be the first to test the stock market with a sale, or maybe even some kind of giveaway, for the shares the United Kingdom government still holds.
A privatisation of the government holding, in total worth some £18bn, is likely to begin before the end of this year. That could be knocked off course by all sorts of considerations, especially by the volatile state of global markets. The third case is the most problematic of the three. RBS came to symbolise the worst excesses of the boom years of British banking, and needed a much bigger bail-out by the government than the other two. The British taxpayer has a stake of 82 per cent on its hands, which it would like to be rid of as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, that day still seems as far away as ever, not least because the government cannot seem to find anybody who agrees with its view of the future path RBS should tread.
Should it be a full-blown global bank, with all the knobs and whistles of investment banking that are deemed to have got RBS in trouble in the first place? Or should it be slimmed down to the core retail banking business essential for the needs of UK customers?
Stephen Hester, who quit suddenly as the chief executive a few weeks ago, was obviously not the man. Now there is a debate as to who should succeed him.
The hot favourite is Ross McEwan, who has been the head of RBS retail banking for the past year.
If Mr McEwan gets the job, it will tell us a lot about what's in store for RBS, as well as for its operations around the world.
fkane@thenational.ae