Sky News Breaks Banks' Bonus Pot Distribution Plans

Sky News City Editor Mark Kleinman reveals the first comprehensive breakdown of how the investment banking arms of Barclays, RBS and HSBC plan to reward their staff.

On the eve of the announcement of Barclays’ annual results – the start of reporting season for Britain’s banks – Sky News can reveal the total they plan to pay bankers in bonuses at their investment banking arms.

Sky News City Editor Mark Kleinman revealed on tonight’s Jeff Randall Live that HSBC is expecting to pay its investment banking staff around the world a total of around £1.5 billion in bonuses for their performance last year.

Kleinman revealed on 6th February that RBS plans to pay around £1.3 billion in bonuses to staff at its investment banking arm, Global Banking and Markets. And on Friday, he revealed that Barclays has cut its compensation-to-revenue ratio for staff at Barclays Capital to 38% - which will result in bonuses of just over £2 billion.

The total bonus pot of around £5 billion is a significant hike on last year, despite international efforts to curb the banking industry’s remuneration culture.

Writing in his blog (www.skynews.com/kleinman), Mark Kleinman said:

“It’s difficult to make exact comparisons between banks and between their aggregate payments historically and today because of fundamental changes to their businesses that have taken place in the recent past: Barclays, for example, only acquired the US operations of Lehman Brothers in the autumn of 2008.

But as I’ve written repeatedly on this blog in recent weeks, the industry will argue that the British banks are showing greater restraint than in previous years despite the fact that this year’s combined bonus figure of about £5bn is sharply up on the comparable payments for 2008.

That’s certainly a message that the likes of John Varley, Barclays’ chief executive, and Stephen Green, HSBC’s chairman, will be emphasising during the next few weeks.”