Today the heads of the UK current banks are in the firing line of the Treasury Select Committee.
Stephen Hester, the new head of Royal Bank of Scotland, is joined by Eric Daniels, CEO of Lloyds Banking Group; Antonio Horta-Osorio of Abbey Bank; Paul Thurston, HSBC UK Managing Director; and John Varley, CEO of Barclays Bank.
Lots of interesting stuff as it's live on Sky News, and will cover more tomorrow, but was interested in Stephen Hester's comment: "I do think that bank pay in some areas of the industry is way too
high and needs to come down and I intend us to lead that process. There will be no bonuses of any sort to anyone associated with losses. I am clear there will be no bonuses at board level. There will be a reduction in bonuses at RBS greater than any bank I know of in the world."
It kind of disagrees with Bob Diamond, the gung-ho CEO of Barclays Capital Markets, and John Varley who stated on Monday: ""I absolutely understand why this matter is the subject of scrutiny in
the way that it is. You will see across the industry that pay has not
been reflective of risk."
They prefer the phrase "incentive compensation" to bonus anyway.
So that clears that up.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
