diff --git a/powershell_kernel/kernel.py b/powershell_kernel/kernel.py
index 7718124..811acaf 100644
--- a/powershell_kernel/kernel.py
+++ b/powershell_kernel/kernel.py
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+from subprocess import check_output
+
 from ipykernel.kernelbase import Kernel
 
 from os import unlink, environ
@@ -8,6 +10,8 @@
 import signal
 import urllib
 
+from traitlets import default, Unicode
+
 from powershell_kernel import subprocess_repl, powershell_proxy
 from powershell_kernel.util import get_powershell
 
@@ -15,6 +19,7 @@
 
 version_pat = re.compile(r'version (\d+(\.\d+)+)')
 
+
 class PowerShellKernel(Kernel):
     implementation = 'powershell_kernel'
     implementation_version = __version__
@@ -24,11 +29,12 @@ def language_version(self):
         m = version_pat.search(self.banner)
         return m.group(1)
 
-    _banner = None
+    banner = Unicode()
 
-    @property
-    def banner(self):
-        return self._banner
+    @default('banner')
+    def _banner_default(self):
+        return check_output(['powershell', '$PSVersionTable.PSVersion']).decode('utf-8')
+        # return self._banner
 
     language_info = {'name': 'powershell',
                      'codemirror_mode': 'shell',
@@ -37,7 +43,7 @@ def banner(self):
 
     def __init__(self, **kwargs):
         Kernel.__init__(self, **kwargs)
-        
+
         # powershell_command env variable is set by the kernel to allow both powershell and pwsh
         # but on python2 we cannot pass it thru env variable, see https://github.com/vors/jupyter-powershell/issues/7
         # TODO(python2): can we pass it somehow differently and still provide user-picked value on python2?
@@ -54,7 +60,7 @@ def do_execute(self, code, silent, store_history=True,
         if not code.strip():
             return {'status': 'ok', 'execution_count': self.execution_count,
                     'payload': [], 'user_expressions': {}}
-        
+
         self.proxy.send_input(code)
         output = self.proxy.get_output()