The only certainty in 2012 is the uncertainty stemming from the financial challenges in the European Union, which are very likely to impact the U.S. banking system.

Expect 2012 to be a gray swan year, a year in which we know a certain risk is plausible, but we don't know how it will impact the financial and banking industries. Unlike a black swan event, which is defined as a highly improbable and unknown risk, the gray swan of the banking industry is the financial uncertainty of the European Union, which is made up of 27 member countries, and most particularly the survival of the euro currency, which is used by 17 of those countries.

Continued turmoil in the euro zone in 2012 is very likely to impact the financial and banking markets in the U.S. because of the interdependence of the global banking system and its reliance on Libor, the world's most widely used benchmark for short-term interest rates. Libor is the rate that the world's banks borrow money and is fixed on a daily basis by the British Bankers' Association based on an average of interbank deposit rates for larger loans at the world's most creditworthy banks.