Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley have applied to repay US government funds totalling $45 billion (£29.1 billion).

The trio are among the banks that were gifted asset guarantees from the taxpayer totalling $700 billion in October after weeks of wrangling in Congress.

Now they need approval from the Federal Reserve to return the money from the scheme known as the Troubled Assets Relief Program (Tarp). Regulators need to satisfy themselves that the banks will be strong enough to go it alone.

Banks want to return the cash to escape the onerous restrictions on pay and hiring attached to the funding.

A return of Tarp money would also be good for the image of the three banks as the taxpayer bailout is seen as a stigma to their standing.

The returns would be the first by the biggest banks that took part in the Tarp programme. It is thought their payback plans were put on hold during the process of "stress testing" where regulators ran the banks' finances through a theoretical worsening of the economic conditions to see if they were strong enough to survive without further fundraisings.

Goldman and JPMorgan were found not to need any more money, while Morgan Stanley was told to raise $1.8 billion but easily surpassed that with a $4.57 billion fundraiser earlier this month.