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European (And US?) Banker Bonuses Capped At Twice Base Salary
Just days before the UK's Barclays bank is set to unveil the number of staff who earned more than GBP1 million last year in its annual report, as part of a push for more transparency, the FT reports that a provisional EU deal - set to go into place in January 2014, will bring the most severe pay crackdown since the 2008 crisis began. European Bankers' bonuses (and their US subsidiaries) are to be capped at two times bankers' salaries and banks will be subject to a strict transparency regime after a late Wednesday European parliament vote secured agreement on a mandatory 1:1 ratio on salary relative to variable pay, which can rise to 2:1 with explicit shareholder approval. With the UK 'threatening' referenda in the future, the deal, if confirmed, is a major victory for the EU parliament negotiators, who insisted on pay curbs as their price for passing Basel; and a sign of London’s relative isolation on some financial services issues. As far as a workaround, the EU commissioner responsible for the reforms, said it was "difficult to imagine now that we would scrap this compromise," though we are sure they will find a way, especially as MEPs want the tougher version eventually to apply to hedge funds and investment managers.
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The impact, however, will be partly softened for the City of London by giving more favourable treatment to long-term pay linked to the health of a bank, such as equity or bonds that are written down when an institution fails.
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While the deal preserves the freedom for national authorities to require banks to hold more capital, the most important UK priority throughout the negotiation, the remuneration exemptions, fall well short of the London’s demands.
George Osborne, the UK chancellor who led frantic diplomatic efforts to blunt the curbs, must now decide whether to force a debate or a formal vote at a meeting of finance ministers next week.
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Senior bankers warned that the pay curbs – which were not part of the Basel accord – will reset the balance of arguments for operating in Europe, with potentially far reaching implications. While average pay levels at banks fit within the ratio, star performers can receive multiples of salary of 10 times or more.
[The Workaround] - As part of the compromise, up to a quarter of variable pay can be issued in instruments deferred for more than five years.
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The European Banking Authority will be given the task of determining the type of instruments that win favourable treatment and the discount rate that is used to calculate their value within the ratio.
Industry hopes of an exemption for international offshoots of EU based banks, as well as US or Asian banks operating within the EU, were dashed.
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While the threat of a bonus clampdown has been hanging over the City for almost a year, the severity of the overall package will come as a big shock, especially given the lack of significant exemptions.
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Banks pleaded with David Cameron, the UK prime minister, to fight the crackdown, warning that it would undermine the City and force banks to move top staff or lucrative operations to New York or Asia.
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The reverberations of the cap will be felt beyond the banking sector. MEPs want the tougher version eventually to apply to hedge funds and investment managers, who are subject to existing bonus rules designed for banks.
THE RULEBOOK AT A GLANCE
Capital: There will be an effective minimum core tier one capital ratio of 7 per cent, rising to up to 9.5 per cent for globally systemic banks, by 2019. The definition of capital is also being tightened although not by as much as the global Basel III agreement required. Regulators may also impose countercyclical capital buffers if they believe an economy is overheating.
Liquidity: Banks will be required to keep on hand enough easy to sell assets to survive a 30-day market crisis. The requirement is phased in between 2015 and 2018, a year faster than Basel III requires. The definition of acceptable assets has not been finalised so it is unclear how closely the EU will follow the Basel III rules.
Bonus curbs: A tentative deal is taking shape where bankers’ bonuses exceeding salary will be banned in normal circumstances. Shareholders could raise the ratio to 2:1 or vote to exempt some long-term forms of pay. All banks must disclose the number of staff paid more than €1m.
Flexibility: Member states can ask individual banks to hold more capital. But they are more constrained about raising capital requirements to tackle systemic risks. The UK and Sweden are content with the complex approval procedure but the commission is pushing for a stronger means to intervene.
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It's all about fucking money and who owns it. Sure as hell not me.
But Jamie D sure likes to tell everyone how much he has and who is he???????
American
Am I being super cynical, or does this mean the collapse is now less than one annual bonus cycle away?
very insightful!
let's pause here for a second.
banks agreeing to take pay cut or pay cap ... makes me go hmmmm
just how bad is the actual data for 2013 and forward? preeeeeeeetty bad is the god awful truth.
1) cap banker's ability to capitalize on the collapse
2) collapse
3) rebuild after the debt has been slashed, liabilities discounted
my favorite part was: The impact, however, will be partly softened for the City of London by giving more favourable treatment to long-term pay linked to the health of a bank, such as equity or bonds that are written down when an institution fails.
let's get to work on your bonuses boys and girls; get those equity and bondholders written down and those institutions failed. if you're going to modify the moral hazard of too big to fail, this is an interesting way to do it. apparently bonuses not bondholders are the final line in the sand.
So that means we can expect to see Basic Salaries going through the roof very shortly??
Leverage is a hell of a drug.
http://youtu.be/hCDAfa-NI-M
Unfortunately the days of good music are behind us. Now it's all canned corporate garbage.
So instead they'll jack up salaries to compensate, unless I'm missing something.
Inflation eats profit margins too, banks will cut staff. So far 2013: RBS India, Citigroup. Deutshe Bank, Morgan Stanley, JPM, BofA is still cutting, etc etc etc
Top will get salary increases, rest get boned.
Keep printing Bernanke...
I sense you are missing something.
The real profit centers, the trading desks, will not jack up the salaries...unlimited incentive is always needed to keep the army's skills honed and to maintain the will to take the risk needed to earn ever more. Without appropriate spoils to gain, nobody exposes themselves to the line of fire that is a trading market.
The C-Suite will want its salaries jacked up, clearly, but future performance will disappoint, so their stars will be on a tarnishing trajectory.
The poster here who said this policy will bring bring us closer to the end point is...prescient !
Right, the incentives have to be right to justify IB hours and eat-what-you-kill performance metrics.
I wonder if maybe your salary could be renegotiated annually to compensate. You get half your bonus at bonus time and the rest over the next 12 months in extra base pay. The tax treatment would be better and you'd have better retention.
I dunno, just spitballin here.
Fascinating idea, but...it creates a house of cards, as well...the one year the trader misses on his book's profitability, after a string of success, he prices himself out of a job.
So he always is incented to go all in by ramping up risk to try to get lucky and dig out of any performance hole. No skin off the trader's back, because if he loses the big risk bet to save his job, then he is out of a job, anyway.
He wins it, he keeps his job. In other words, he is incented to always go out in a blaze of glory.
while i'm no fan of bankers, it's possible govenment interference in markets is worse.
and the market, like the internet, always routes around damage, like gov't regulation.
there will be a work-around, one way or another.
note that markets and banks are not exactly the same
are you advocating deregulation of banks? that's what the US did in 1999 and created the megabank phenomenon, aka TBTF
i'm not quite sure where you are heading with the statement that markets and banks are not the same - in this case the market in question is the labor market, specifically the banking labor market - are you advocating central planning price controls for this specific type of compensation?
absolutely! i am advocating deregulation of EVERYTHING! the government has no business regulating and interfering in the voluntary and free exchange of goods and services between individuals.
with regarding TBTF, this is a blatant hoax, and an excuse by the cronies of corporatists who work in the gov't to funnel monies stolen from taxpayers to their co-conspirators in the banks.
sure, a collapse of the financial system would be very painful, but it was necessary and it should have happened in all honesty.
sometimes painful lessons are needed to learn and grow.
+1
She's a very kinky girl...
There is definitely a rejection against the bankers. Probably the opinion pubic has a very negative view of them. However, I think we should be careful about the measures that are to be taken. Controlling wages has never been the solution to anything. If bankers do not do a good job, then you would have to fire them and hire better ones. Only in banana republics solves these problems by trying to control their salaries.
I can guarrantee you that what they are missing in bonus they will make up in shorting the market at just the right time.
Nah.
Salaries will go up 200% this year.
Problem solved.
I do like increasing Fixed Costs - it will expose the uneconomic structure of Banking rapidly and lead to redundancies. Fixed Cost Control is the answer to Bankers' Salaries and it is time to levy a Tobin Tax to help constrain their largesse
yes.....youre right. One way or another, that darkness has got to give... Water will find its way around anything you put in it's way! foundation, doors, drains....houses....water will find a way....
Just like these dirt-bags.....
Eventually Ray Dalio is going to do this too, just not call it a bank. He's richer than Jamie anyway.
Banks will be relagated to effective utilities. Really really big utilities with enought M.A.D. derivatives to sink us all, of course.
As I understand it, the Blankfein is a type of weasel faced rat that spends most of the day scavenging in a cesspool of rotten turd corpses
I'm sorry, can someone please help me find the word "hangin' " in this article?
They'll have to run that by Jamie Dimon before it can happen in the US.
Why not just threaten to dump EU debt if the pay caps are not lifted?
Because the banks are far more dependent on EU Government handouts and the ECB's ultra-low buddy-buddy loans to banks than the EU is dependent on banks. Not only that, the biggest game in town is actually to get cheap money from the ECB and then turn around and buy "high-yield" Tresuries from EU countries.
Also the City of London does most of their business within the EU market and don't want to risk that. This is why the British Chancellor fought so hard against these rules:the City banks will have no other option than to obbey them if they want to keep trading in the EU. Remember: the reason the UK joined the EU in the first place and hasn't left was exactly so that the country's companies would have free access to the single market.
interestingly there were voices that pointed to the new trading balance between the UK and the rest of the EU (particularly the eurozone) where the UK is now a net importer and so would have a stronger position - I still doubt this
but yes, the stranglehold that megabanks have on the US and the UK is much, much weaker on continental europe - something I'm trying to point out since over a year here on ZH
and... ta dah! the currency grid that is this federation of national banks aka the eurozone is a further political shield against the inroads of the megabanks, Draghi-"Squid" notwithstanding
Acet, still more in the anti-EUR camp than in the pro-EUR one?
It is a good move but not enough. Banks should be Utilities
Lloyd Blankcheck will not be affected. Nor will Jamie Diamondmine. More for them.
Double dip - Seinfeld
Here's an idea you clueless idiots....let the f'ing banks fail!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Provide NO government support to lenders, depositers, businesses.....and reduce the size of government by say, 90%. Oh ya...how about enforcing the existing laws and abolish private central banks?
Yeah, it occurs to me that a bank would have to have a risk of failure for this to impair compensation.
OK, so let me get this straight.. Banks are TBTF, meaning that they are above the law, and at the same time we expect that new rules are going to somehow do WHAT exactly? Someone please help me understand this.
QEDS
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/DATASTATISTICS/EXTDECQEDS/0,,contentMDK:21662858~pagePK:64168445~piPK:64168309~theSitePK:1805415,00.html
16-Apr-13, think about this day after the projected US IRS revenue inflow.
to get you straight: this is an European Union law
Yes and about time too....when will Ackermann be brought to account ?
hope soon, very soon. I fervently hope that the monster known as Deutsche Bank will be dismantled, but I fear ze Germans feel the need to have a "financial dreadnought" (as Jesse of the Cafe Americain calls them) of their own
perhaps they should rename the beast in Bismarck or Tirpitz Bank
It's A European Union law. Kindly refrain from decimating our language with your continental hyper-correctivity.
+1, Lebensphilosoph, I stand corrected and thank you for it. Do you care for a comment on the matter of the article or any of my musings?
I really like that: continental hyper-correctivity
So you are implying that European banks are not TBTF and that they follow the law? Sorry, but that doesn't help.
some european banks are indeed TBTF - see my comment on Deutsche Bank
follow the law? well, it depends - see the Monte dei Paschi di Siena scandal
but one thing I can tell you for sure: continental europeans see the banks as a facility
and have a tendency to nationalize instead of bailing out
Does that go for the small average bank employee and the CEOz, CIOz, Managers as well ?
or some bankers are more equal than others. If others get a smaller cut of the cake, that means others get more.
The great battle of sucking; Socialists vs TBTF...
Our banking problems were not and are not caused by bankers pay levels, they are the result of government meddling in the credit market and messing with pay packages will not fix that problem. It is more likely to aggravate the problem. The politicians act like they have never heard of opportunity cost or if they have then they do not understand the practical effects of such costs. They think any moron can manage money because they do.
That's still enough to buy one of my sculptures.
LOL - "The impact, however, will be partly softened for the City of London..." Time for the City of London to leave the EU, eh? Too bad they have to drag England with them, eh?
"George Osborne, the UK chancellor who led frantic diplomatic efforts to blunt the curbs, must now decide whether to force a debate or a formal vote at a meeting of finance ministers next week."
Oh, poor, poor George, I wonder how many friends you still have in the FinMin group?
As I have written many times here in ZH, continental europeans see the banking systems as facilities, in the same way as the other systemic grids
Well, the Tories received most of their campaign contribution money from Financial Institutions in the City of London, so Osborne is just fighting for his paymasters.
Also, the carrot of highly paid sinecures in Finance once they retire from politics is certainly still being dangled in front of the nose of those politicians. Wasn't Tony Blair (that pinacle of Financial and Economic expertise) that ended up in Goldman Sachs getting $4 milllion a year!?
By the way, RBS, the local bank that had to pretty much be nationalised (but is "kept at arms length from the state", which means that they effectivelly manage themselves and have thus carried on with the same old shit, only worse so, thus remaining socially useless) has just posted a loss of £5 billion for 2012, their 5th consecutive year of losses (interestingly, their investment banking arm kept getting billions in bonuses all throughout these 5 years).
don't forget my darling Nigel Farage, fearless leader of the UKIP (who's Members of the European Parliament abstain from voting there), who is also a Fellow of the priviledged medieval corporation called City of London
by Gog and Magog (protectors of the corp), a lot of this EU-UK infighting could be solved if the UK would just grant the City nationhood or at least a more clear extra-territoriality, don't you think?
Sorry Ghordius the Corporation oF the City of London is PRE-Medieval. It pre-dates that Carpetbagger William of Normandy and is Prescriptive rather than Legal in Constitution since it PRE-DATES the English Legal System
sandmann, I stand corrected and thank you - interesting, by Gog and Magog, I thought from fallible memory they were from the XII century
usually my fascination is more centered on the "Minder of their prerogatives" they have in Parliament
please don't call William and his honourable band of Normans carpetbaggers, it offends my (tribal) sensibilities ;-)
this means that a lot of US based branches of european banks will have a great incentive to leave their "mothers"
some of them are Primary Dealers - ding! ding!
expect further vilification of the bad, bad EU - LOL
The bonus-sucking parasites should themselves be capped - knee-capped...
Will the City of London take this lying down or will the UK quit the EU and become the Cayman Islands with nukes?
RBS just posted a £5 Billion loss this morning, but just paid out £600 Million in bonuses...
Well, you see, big bonuses are needed to attract and keep the star quality personnel.
Osborne said it, so it must be true.
That's why RBS had to pay £600 million in bonuses: they would otherwise be unable to attract and retain the kind of quality employees that can maintain 5 consecutive years of losses and even loose £5 billion for the bank in just one year.
Black holes are stars too, you know ...
Good job they take the Bonuses between the lines and not from the Dividend Pool then !
RBS's £5.2 billion loss announced today includes:
-£1.1bn charge for PPI mis-selling (ie fraud)
-£700m for mis-selling interest rate swaps (ie fraud)
-£381m for its role in Libor rigging (ie fraud)
NB: Nobody criminally prosecuted for any of the above.
Can someone remind me WHY Gordon Brown chose to use taxpayer funds to save this toxic bank in 2008 and whether it was in the *national interest*? Or simply the socialist Labour Party's interest?
according to your avatar/logo it must be some evil scheme from the EU - snigger, snigger, ;-)
but to be equanimous: the RBS scandal is really not that much different from the Monte dei Paschi di Siena one, where control of MPS was in the hand of regional Democratic Party bigwigs
oh. wait. in Italy there are some prosecutions being made...
Hello Ghordius, has the EU given its Internet shills a pay rise? or perhaps a bonus? Do tell :-)
Whatever, I never wrote or intended my comment to imply that the EU was involved in RBS, although I agree with you that the EU is "evil".
The saving of RBS using taxpayers' money was an act decided in No.10 Downing Street solely by the then Prime Minister: Gordon "Jonah" Brown (and his side-kick Ed Balls). Neither the electorate nor Parliament were involved. And anybody who was paying attention at the time knew exactly why he did it. RBS simply adds to the huge number of decisions Brown took as Chancellor and PM which were never in the "national interest", only in HIS interest and that of his fascist-socialist Labour Party.
I support the view that the Labour Party should be proscribed. But given that well over 30% of voters still voted for it in May/2010 after Blair and Brown had spent 13 years wrecking the country, there isn't much chance of that. Hatred of success and wealth runs deep in Britain and is reflected by support for the Labour Party and in our national psyche at election times.
hellooo smacker! good to see you in excellent humour!
well, I'm posting (pro bono) pro-EUR (not necessarily pro-ECB policy, btw) comments here with my very visible avatar since 1 year and 39 weeks - my interest is in truth
the EU parliament has only approved a few weeks ago 2 millions for pro-EU trolling - I think they should give me half of it ;-)
but they won't, first because I'm too critical for their tastes (I would scrap the directly elected EU Parliament and put national parliament delegations in it's stead - keeping the sovereign primacy where it belongs) and second because it's reserved for overtime work of the employees of that institution (a kind of budgetary sleaze, imo - I don't expect them to work much)
but no, I don't see the EU and the UK Labour Party as evil - only parts of them as corrupted
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a bowl of crystal, beautifully crafted by the ingenuity of workmanship - filled with shit
the image of corruption
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a well meant advice: hatred is not healthy, neither for body or spirit or soul - remember that those 30% are people, too
anyway, I burn to read if you think that at least this EU law is something you'd support ;-)
Humour ROOLS!
Well, on the EUR: sorry, but I believe it is - and always was - a seriously flawed political idea, but necessary in the demented minds of EU-crats and EU political elites in order to further their prime secret ambition of creating the United States of Europe to rival the United States of America. And of course to spread their lifelong utopian ambition of international socialism. The EUR was never going to work unless there was political and fiscal unity, meaning a centrally commanded budget and economy. You know, like they had in the Soviet Union before it collapsed. Socialists never learn because they're driven by dogma and a craving for power and control.
The right future (if success and prosperity are the yardsticks - which they should be) is for smaller national units, each with their own currencies that freely trade. That is the only known way to accomodate different cultures and different levels of productivity. Apparently, the EU High Command don't understand this because their minds are smothered in socialist slime {shrug}.
The EUR crises has brought this fact home to the morons in Europe but they're in denial, and now trying to implement both retrospectively, largely against the wishes of their electorates and also many of the national political elites who fear handing over their financial mis-management to the likes of Barreloso, himself a communist who made a shambles as PM in Portugal. One Portuguese person told me "he was the most hated person in Portugal", which probably explains why he moved to the EU ...to get himself out of the way before he was lynched.
On the EU generally, you claim to only be supportive of the EUR but you sure have some ideas about the EU itself. Are you sure you aren't an EU paid shill? ;-) hhmmm. To describe people like Barreloso and many others simply as "corrupt" (which they are) is an understatement IMHO. They are evil people who intend to impose THEIR model of nationhood and society onto us all without even asking us. Most of them have IQs little higher than a jackboot size.
Classic communism/fascism is on the rise as I predicted 15 years ago. And we should never forget that the situation that has arisen which has paved the way for it (economic crashes all over the place) were themselves created by these very same evil political elites. A coincidence?
excellent remarks, smacker - thank you, +1
how could I possibly prove that I'm not a "paid shill"? can you?
personally, I'm no friend of the United States of Europe idea - I vastly prefer the current confederation of sovereign nations approach
but please do note that there are lots of friends of the super-state idea - except in the UK, where the banksters - note the sublime irony - are still shouting for EuroBonds
no, common debt would have to mean a common army and navy - no, thanks
but the "EUR Crisis"? any country can leave the eurozone - it's the consequences that are daunting, this currency war is not a good environment for small currencies without anchor (note the Swiss, the Danes, etc.) - and if you leave the eurozone just to peg to the EUR, then why did you in the first place? a quick devaluation as a palliative? how well does this work, in the long run?
note that currently there are two currencies with hyperinflation risk: the USD and... the Pound
Barrelloso and Gollum should be a bit more humble - on this I agree - they are after all only commissioned officers of the council
oh, you give me lots of other things I'd like to write here - another time - and thanks, again
ABN-AMRO was acquired by RBS and Fortis.......whatever happened to Fortis Ghordius ?
Seven of the former CEO´s/Boardmembers of Fortis involved in the ABN-AMRO deal are actually getting sued by Belgian prosecutors, they face up to 5 years imprisonment as well as a fine for misleading investors and shareholders about Fortis actual financial position during the acquisition. Here is the link (In Dutch) from Belgium newspaper De Standaard of Feb 20th: http://www.standaard.be/artikel/detail.aspx?artikelid=DMF20130220_036
Free Corzine! Free Diamond!
Better still it bought ABN-AMRO which was knee-deep in loans to Russian Oligarchs, no doubt now awaiting bailouts in Cyprus. You know that Fred Goodwin was an Adviser to Gordon Brown as a Fellow Scot. Brown loved collecting Advisers like Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers, and even had Mandelson's buddy Lord Stevenson installed as Chairman of HBOS
This is great news - the salaries will now double as well. They already went up by much since the 2008 and now it is going to be epic.
This solves the problem of one insolvent bank losing employees to better offers from another insolvent bank.
Screw that. When do we institute a maximum executive:janitor pay scale ratio?
Let me taste your tears, bankster pigs. Let me taste your tears!
Expect pay to go through the roof or even more creative, expect a new "compensatory term" not bonus but something like "remunerative shiny stuff" to take the place of now regulated "bonus".
Let "Too Big To Fail" fail. That is the easiest way to curb "excessive" compenstaion. Goverenment interference is not the answer. It is actually the root cause of the problem in the first place.