Bankers going to get their bonuses anyway

[jujumaman]

here

I don't know what to think about this.

We have a friend who works at another bank that has been bailed out by a foreign govt. He was telling us this weekend that he's planning to sue because he may not get his promised bonus of £2m or so, and will "only" end up with his salary which is prob around 250k

I know bonuses are intrinsic to banks' cultures but how - in these god awful times - can £2m bonuses be justified. My friend says his was the only division of his bank which made money last year, so why should he be penalised for others' faults? My feeling is every taxpayer is being penalised for others' faults and someone who is still earning an excellent salary should graciously accept it and be grateful he still has a well-paid job. But my dh tells me I'm being naive and that bankers will carry on getting these vast bonuses just as before. Not convinced by arguments in article I've linked to. Anyone with more knowledge of the city than me like to defend my friend's position (I v much like him personally.

Well, I am 41 and have a Cambridge Masters and PhD, and I have just broken through the £40k barrier after about 15 years' work experience.

That's fairly normal - 200k salaries really really aren't.

PS My bonus last year was £600 after tax.

Merde. My life feed is down.

Overall, the questioning has been poor.
Quite frankly, a lot of people on this thread would have done a better job grilling the bankers!

lets hope samantha cameron and sarah brown read mumsnet and could give their husbands a few tips from us on how to run the country!

The thing is the more affluent bankers have been living in a bit of a disconnected bubble for about a decade now. They honestly believe they are special and different, and deserve a degree of privilege the rest of the country cannot even begin to aspire to. This was allowed to continue while they made the rest of us money, but now we are all struggling, the myth has been debunked. However many of them still believe this will blow over after a couple of years and it will be business as usual.

I agree with that BoffinMum. Not all employees of RBs fall into that category though.

Of course they don't, and at this point I have to use the cliche 'some of my best friends are RBS employees' etc etc. But my criticism was aimed at the top 2% of earners in the organsation.

BUT the top 2% of earners ARE NOT GETTING ANY BONUS.

Virtually every bank has foregone bonuses for the executive and Board levels of staff.

Squiffy many other companies in the city who are not banks are not giving out bonuses to anyone (board or minions) this year, if the companies overall profits are down.

In other companies workers just accept the fact that however hard they have worked and even if they have achieved their personal targets/objectives times are tough at the moment and they are lucky to have a job.

I don't understand the mindset of people who work for banks who have almost gone bust and they still expect to get their normal bonus.

Forgoing bonuses for the executive and board is not enough as it seems the bonus bill is still millions for the lower ranks of banking workers.

i suspect that a large proportion of the bonuses to be paid are contractual obligations. In this case, unless the recipient waives their entitlement the bank has no choice but to pay (or be sued). Now you may be a better person than I, but I would not be waiving any bonus I was entitled to - if I felt moral twinges I would potentially donate some of it to good causes - but there's no way I'd refuse to take it. I'm not a banker and don't have a bonus so this is a hypothetical question for me - but I'm not prepared to claim any moral high ground on this one because I would take all of any bonus to which I was contractually entitled and wouldn't think twice about it.

DH works for one of "those" banks and we have gone beyond even expecting a bonus, a bonus for us this year is if he still has a job at the end of it.

if these creeps were really sorry they'd give away their bonuses to all the people who have been made redundant since sept., 2008 and who are about to made redundant.

yeah, thought not!

shit, i'd happily go on air and apologise for the whole world for being born if there were a £1m+ bonus in it for me.

sorry, that's 'to' the whole world.

I have to say bonuses in all other industries were minute compared to this even in boom times, and nobody seems to be getting bonuses at all now outside banking.

I heard a banker say on the news this week "I got a good appraisal, so I should be entitled to get my bonus". Well, matey boy, that is called DOING YOUR JOB PROPERLY in the rest of the world. You should not require performance related pay just to do what they hired you for.

I have only ever had one bonus in 15 years, and that was for performing at nigh on superhuman levels during a staffing shortage situation (so they had saved loads of money anyway).

I do have a couple of friends who work in finance, and honestly, they weren't really doing anything very impressive, if I am going to be brutally honest about it. I could certainly swap jobs with them after a morning's briefing and hold my own. I probably understood more about some of the various products than they did. So my sympathy is not extensive.

squiffy, I'm sure you know as well as I do that the top 2% of earners are not necessarily on the board. I, like millions of others, will not be getting a bonus this year. It's the price I'm paying for keeping a job - not just for me but for all my colleagues.

How about a cap on bonuses of 10K? That would be enough to keep the low-paid workers from the bread line but not enough to arouse the ire of the majority of the British public.

BoffinMum - the PRP element usually makes up the majority of the earnings, people wouldn't take the jobs if it was just the basic pay on offer

"Bank by bank: who?s got the least punitive bonus reforms?"

God almighty Eldon, is that how they carry on? Those competitive bonus comments were surreal. Very many willies being waved, and for what??? No wonder we'll all in such a mess with adolescent knobs like that mucking about with our money.

BTW what are we talking about as basic, say for a forex trader as mentioned in the comments box below - the job someone's granny could apparently do?

One of my former tenants was a Standard Bank guy - as part of his financial vetting process for the tenancy he proudly showed me his bank statements for his offshore account. It was a totally shit account and he could have got a much better rate bunging it in the Post Office and paying the tax on it. I told him so and he sneered at me. I mean really sneered, like I was some sort of stupid yokel who understood nothing. (Little did he know I had done a brief stint at Midland Private Banking).

I was very encouraged to read in the Torygraphy two weekends later a summary of all the various offshore rates and accounts, and yes, there, right in front of my eyes, they were agreeing with what I had said. It isn't rocket science, fgs. You just have to look at a couple of charts and be a bit pro-active with your money.

These buggers can barely handle their own dosh, let alone other people's, and they assume we're all idiots. We're not.

looking at the ads I'd say £50K - £100K basic

anyone who complains that their basic salary isn't enough to survive on is free to leave and find a job that pays them better.

Eldon, that puts them into the top 5% of earners nationally.

Edam, I agree, they are perfectly at liberty to try to find a job elsewhere that pays the same or better (they won't be able to though, because in realilty their skillset is redundant!)

Presumably those of you baying for blood were cheered by this report. dh , along with many, many others up and down the UK have gone in today to learn their fate. If nothing else maybe it will at least end some of the uncertainty of the past few months. However I seriously doubt it will be the "bankers" you refer to who will be the ones to take the brunt. It is much more likely to be the ones who have little influence over policy and risk.

As to the commment from Boffinmum lower down re bonusses. The images of champagne glasses and city wide boys shown on the media are so not depicting the majority and designed to fuel the sentiments expressed on this thread. Picking a smug overweight thirty something to comment on his situation was not uncalculated. His comment was partly true though. In many industries (not exclusive to financial institutions) bonusses are partly paid on achievement of individual objectives in their job role, partly on overall profitability. Noone is really arguing for a profit-related element where none has been achieved by their business but many will still have exceeeded their personal targets. The amount they would normally get for doing so is discretionary within a particular scale. This is what motivates people to stay and continue to work hard. Agree with Sweetkitty we aren't planning on getting one and haven't been for a while. What would be hard to swallow is if the bosses were to get theirs (perhaps on a contractual basis) but employees don't.

Fingers crossed sweetkitty, chocolatedot and any others I've missed.

Lizs - there is a huge difference between not receiving a bonus when a company has a bad year and being made redundant.

If RBS was planning to pay out less in bonuses maybe it would not have to make so many people redundant.

I wouldn't want anyone in banking to lose their job. However I think it is ridiculous to pay out bonuses to staff of any level when a company has made a loss.

Therefore the report that RBS is cutting 1000s of jobs is not cheering to me. I hope your DHs job is ok.

There have been all these articles in the press about executives from banks taking clients on jollys to the alps etc..all these make one feel that the bankers are not living in the real world, or at least not getting their priorities right. I feel their priority should be to minimise job cuts and cut out some of the unecessary expenditure such as the skiing jollies.

But the banks were failing and are only here because you, me and every other tax payer in this country bailed them out. If we didnt, would they still exist?

The company that my brother works for is failing, redundancy looks to be around the corner, no government bail out for them. He works hard, appraisals have always been brilliant, there is no money in the pot to give him a bonus, barely enough to pay his wages.

So I firmly believe that everybody who is due a bonus who works for one of the bailed out banks should not get their bonus, I understand its unfortunate and it is probably only the top decision makers that got the banks in the mess they are in, but we are all in a mess because of it, we are all suffering, and I personally want my money (taxpayers money) to be spent in a better way, I dont want to be paying some banker to jet off to some fantastic holiday when I can barely afford a week in the UK.

So NO NO NO NO NO,
i do feel quite strongly about this, you may have guessed.

Boffinmum, I really can't accept that it's as easy as you describe. The basic function of a forex trader is of course very simple but the pressure you are under is immense. Decisions have to be taken on the spot and the conssequences of a bad decision is similarly immediate. I don't know too many grannies who would be happy to arive at work at 6.30am and stare at a screen for 12 hours solid. And of course, ff it really were that easy, why aren't people up and down the land becomeing forex traders in their own front room? All you need is a screen.

I worked for investment banking in 18 years and now do exactly the same analytical work but with zero reponsibility and pressure for an independent consultancy. I work 30 hours a week and have taken a 90% pay cut to do it (I was previously a director). Even though we could do with the money (drive a crappy car, no holiday last year etc) I would rather boil mmy head than go anywhere near that pressured environment where the demands on you are all consuming. My present salary is totally derisory but no amount of money could make me go back. This may come across as self pity but that's not how it's meant. I am very happy with my current set up.