Bankers paid in shares

[kerstina]

Why can't bankers be paid in shares (especially the banks which were bailed our by our government) rather than cash bonuses and when are the government going to cash in the shares that they own? If they can afford to give the big payouts surely they can start repaying some money back to us?

What difference would being paid in shares make?

Why would you want them to paid in shares?

I suspect the Government will sell its shares in the nationalised banks when it is satisfied that the banks are stable and are viable as banks so it will be able to get a good price for the re-privatisation

Well it would not take money away from the bank that could be paid back to our government.
My partners gets shares occasionally from the Royal Mail and i think its good for employees to have a share in the success of the company. Obviously i am not an expert on banking or economics !

We used to be able to choose to have our bonus in shares. It was a long time ago but I think there's an incentive to do that actually because of the tax.

This is already being done by the FSA: article here

Of course, Lehmans' employees were shareholders in the business (Dick Fuld had a very large holding) but it didn't result in them taking a lower-risk approach...

they are almost exclusively paid in shares. new EU and UK rules mean top paid bankers (earning more than £500K total) can only receive 20% of their bonus in upfront cash.
CEOs will take only shares, I reckon.