The pay and bonuses of high-flying City traders and dealmakers will have to be publicly disclosed
Howard Lake | 16 July 2009 | Blogs
The FT and others are reporting some especially intersting news for prospect researchers. It would appear that banks are going to have to be more transparent about what they pay their top earners. So, the pay and bonuses of hundreds of high-flying City traders and dealmakers will have to be publicly disclosed. At the moment, this scrutiny only applies to the pay of board members.
In an interim report, David Walker, former chairman of Morgan Stanley International, will propose that pay, bonuses and pension details should be revealed for all staff earning more than the average executive salary in the boardroom. This could affect between 200 and 300 traders and senior executives at most big banks, although the report proposes that the anonymity of individuals be preserved by listing remuneration in bands. So, although we won’t know individual amounts, we will get a little more information on this highly paid bunch.
Although the rules are directed at UK banks, foreign-owned groups with big British operations, (e.g. Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, etc) could be required to make similar disclosures. The proposal could affect thousands of City bankers.
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The new regime would be less punitive than in the US, where banks must disclose the identities of their five highest-paid members of staff, several of whom are typically investment bankers rather than board-level executives. Alistair Darling is likely to receive Walker’s final report in the autumn and is expected to adopt most of its recommendations.
The report will also look at plans to improve the quality of bank boards.
Finbar Cullen
ResearchPlus
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.