Banks Raise Pay as U.K. Efforts to Cut Bonuses Fail

[Joanne98]

Source: Bloomberg

March 2 (Bloomberg) -- Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling urged pay restraint and moderation from U.K. banks, and still they raised compensation.

Barclays Capital, the investment-banking unit of Barclays Plc, increased its pay and bonuses per employee by about 93 percent in 2009, according to company filings. Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, the U.K.’s biggest government-owned bank, raised total compensation per employee by about 73 percent last year. Of the U.K.’s three largest banks, HSBC Holdings Plc was the only one where pay declined slightly in its investment bank.

“The banks are just paying lip-service to what they think politicians and the public want to hear while carrying on as normal,” said Chris Roebuck, a visiting professor at Cass Business School in London. “The apparent changes they’ve made to compensation are just an exercise in smoke and mirrors.”

Banks are under scrutiny from governments worldwide to reduce compensation amid public anger about trillions of taxpayer dollars used to bail out lenders during the credit crisis. In December, Darling introduced a one-time 50 percent levy on discretionary bank bonuses of more than 25,000 pounds ($37,500) to encourage banks to build up their capital.


Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a5LYnH87xr7I&pos=1

[nykym]

1. Time to make

all the one time fixes permanent. Just like they do to the average citizen.