For Macquarie Group,  the only Australian banking multinational, a six year ordeal hauling itself back towards respectability seems to be reaching a conclusion. Macquarie's 2017 full year net profit of $2.2 billion is up 7.5 per cent, a headline figure that at a glance looks slight when compared to any of the other large Australian banks. Yet on a 'like for like' basis, over the past year Macquarie's latest profit is more like the 'best of the best' in banking.Macquarie's return on equity for the full year was 15.2 per cent, up from 14.7 per cent in 2016. The "annualised return on equity" over the second half of the year was 15.8 per cent, up 1.2 percentage points. Both increases may be incremental, but they continue a sustained period of recovery. The ROE outcome is the one most satisfying for managing director Nicholas Moore and CFO Patrick Upfold -  yet, in keeping with the habitual flat methods of the group's culture, they did not rent a proper tannoy to get the message out. Neither Moore nor Upfold put any real focus on this key vital sign, despite the progressive recovery in ROE being a testament to the proven performance of a single-minded strategy set in place by Moore and the board six years ago.In late 2011, the board and Moore called action stations across the group to put a stop to the rot in Macquarie's core profit. Return on equity allows valid comparison between banks of different sizes and business mixes, and steps out of the confusion generated by large, growing, headline profits. Once boasting an ROE deep into the 20 per cent range, and at one stretch repeated easily, Macquarie's ROE downdrafted for years after the GFC to levels that were incredibly low, given the Macquarie aura.For instance, for the year to March 2012 Macquarie owned up to a return on equity of 6.8 per cent and a return on assets of less than 0.5 per cent, ratios that might have been lifted from a KPMG survey of credit union profits.That 2012 profit, in dollar terms, was half that reported in 2007, pre-crisis. In ROE terms, the profit was less than one quarter of Macquarie's pre-crisis profit. On an ROA basis, the profit was less than one-sixth Macquarie's previous profitability.With numbers that poor, Macquarie's custodians rallied behind a severe regime to compel business unit leaders to deliver.The all points order was simple and certain. All business units were directed to meet return on equity targets, with the clear message that those that didn't were "on the way out".Tough love and work-a-day ingenuity in the most promising business divisions are behind this year's 15 per cent plus ROE sparkle rise in Macquarie's 2017 full year profit, a level out of reach of ANZ and NAB, the two big bank's that reported last week. Across the banking sector in Australia he return on equity for all banks was ten per cent for the year ended December 2016.Trawl back to 2007 and