Still living large

Grossly overpaid bankers, who helped trigger the worst financial crisis in generations in 2008, are still living large according to a European watchdog report, with the UK being home to the biggest share of high earning bankers in the EU.

Of the 3,178 EU bankers who took home more than €1m (£730,000) in 2013, just over 2,000 – or 65 per cent – hailed from the UK, the European Banking Authority (EBA) found.

After the 2008 crisis, a public outcry over pay transparency among financial institutions prompted the EBA to gather more detailed pay breakdowns, now available for the first time.

Of the 2,086 UK bankers classed as high earners earning more than €1m, almost 1,500 earned between €1m and €2m, with nine receiving more than £10m and one, Europe’s highest earning banker, cashing in at €18.3m

This unnamed UK banker topping the list received basic pay of €1.1m, with a “performance-based” pay out worth €17.2m (£12.5 million) – representing a jaw-dropping 1,567 per cent of salary.

EU bonus caps
The latest EBA report uses data from 2013, the year before new EU rules, which cap bonuses at no more than 200 per cent of salary, came into force. The EBA is set to publish data for 2014 at the end of this year.

The UK government, along with banks, have fought against the bonus restrictions, with chancellor George Osborne presenting a legal challenge to EU courts in 2013. He subsequently withdrew the challenge suddenly last year.

Almost 40 banks across six nations in the EU, including the UK, began giving banking executives ‘allowances’ in order to sidestep regulations. Although the EBA has warned against this practice, it still continues unabated, with UK banks RBS and HSBC recently paying out 24 executives millions in shares in an effort to circumvent the new rules.

 
Tellingly, the EBA report analysing the most recent pay figures for top bankers in the EU noted that there was no strong correlation between pay and performance.

 
“Overall in 2013, profitability was significantly reduced in many institutions compared with 2012,” the European banking regulator noted. “Consequently the average net profit per staff member was reduced in 2013. Based on the aggregated figures no strong correlation between the average net profit of institutions and the remuneration of identified staff could be observed.”

 
‘Tale of two banking industries’

 
Unite national officer for the finance sector Dominic Hook condemned bank boardroom culture, calling the pay situation a “tale of two banking industries”.

 
“On the one hand the UK has the highest paid senior bankers in Europe, while our members in call centres and bank branches are expected to get by on minimal wages,” he said. “This crucial difference is often overlooked — frontline staff are constantly left to face abuse from customers who want to vent their anger at boardroom greed.”

 
“The EBA report reveals that one of the most important lessons of the 2008 crash remains unheeded,” Hook went on to say. “The huge gulf in pay between senior executives and the workforce reflects the complete lack of accountability in the boardrooms.”

 
Widening pay inequality between executives and workers in the banking sector is widely reflected among other high-profit companies, as a recent High Pay Centre report found.

 
The think tank revealed last month that chief executive pay among the FTSE 100 jumped to an average of £4.964m in 2014 – 183 times greater than the average UK worker.

 
Government’s role

 
Hook condemned the role that the government has played in allowing banks to get away with their iniquities post-financial crisis.

 
“Following the bailout the Tories had a golden opportunity to use the public stake in RBS and Lloyds to bring scrutiny and transparency to the tops of Britain’s biggest banks,” he said. “Chancellor George Osborne has allowed boardroom culture to go completely unchallenged, leaving senior executives to carry on as if the crash didn’t happen.

 
“This means that every fine or levy which is handed to the banks for boardroom misconduct is immediately handed down to the workforce, with attacks on pay, terms, conditions, and in thousands of cases jobs,” Hook added.

 
Indeed, as the High Pay Centre report noted, Lloyds Banking Group chief executive Antonio Horta-Osoria is one of the UK’s most handsomely remunerated bosses, while he shamelessly presides over 9,000 job losses planned over the coming three years.

 
“As the government will not act to make the banks accountable, the task falls to bank workers themselves,” Hook noted. “By organising and having a strong collective voice across the banks, Unite members can bring scrutiny to the industry and close the pay gap.”