The £10.5m fine by the Financial Services Authority for HSBC this week brings the total FSA fines this year to just under £62m.

This includes FSA fines of £38m so far this year for eight firms in the retail banking sector.

This represents 61 per cent of the 56 fines handed out in total.

Two were for failures in complaints handling, two for suitability for advice, one for client asset failures, one for senior management systems and controls, one for investment advice and one for market abuse.

However, this figure is £27m short of last year’s record-breaking fines of £89m.

Mary Stewart, manager of regulatory content at Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, said: “Although earlier in the year it was expected that 2011 would be much quieter we are now seeing a last minute rally by the regulator to boost its enforcement division’s bank balance.

“Firms must be prepared to meet complex and stringent regulatory requirements by identifying, monitoring and assessing compliance, operational and financial risk positions across their organisations.”

The £10.5m fine to HSBC is the largest fine ever handed out to a retail bank.

Other firms fined this year include Barclays Bank which was fined £7.7m in January, Norwich and Peterborough which was fined £1.4m in April and Bank of Scotland which was fined £3.5m in May.