The worst paying bank in London is paying a little more

If you want a large bonus relative to your salary, you probably do not want to work for a British bank. While Goldman Sachs has granted itself the ability to pay bonuses of up to 25X salaries in London, Barclays and HSBC are stuck at up to 10X. And even this looks good compared to Lloyds and NatWest, which are only paying up to 8X salaries as bonuses this year.

Get Morning Coffee ☕ in your inbox. Sign up here.

Lloyds released its Pillar 3 document showing its compensation for material risk takers today. In the investment bank, Lloyds paid its 46 material risk takers (MRTs) average salaries of £383k and average bonuses of £348k, leading to total compensation of £730k ($991k). Average MRT bonuses at Lloyds investment bank were up 24% on the previous year. Lloyds remains, however, the worst paying large bank in London on this measure.

NatWest released similar documents for its material risk takers last week. In the investment bank, it paid 102 MRTs average salaries of £498k and average bonuses of £396k. Bonuses in NatWest's investment bank were, however, down on the £412k it paid last year. 

Both NatWest and Lloyds paid far less than Barclays. Barclays' investment bank is far larger and its largesse is greater too.

Following regulatory changes, banks in London were free to define fewer people as material risk takers and to defer a smaller proportion of MRT bonuses this year. There's little sign of this happening, however. Lloyds said today that it's still paying the sorts of role based allowances that were used to bump up salaries in the old days of the 2x EU bonus cap. It's also still defining everyone earning over £660k as a material risk taker and it's still limiting immediately available cash bonuses to £2k. 

Lloyds has aspirations to expand its investment bank. The Financial Times noted a few weeks ago that it wants to grow in FX hedging and bond sales. 

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, Whatsapp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Signal: sarahbutcher.22  Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com. 

Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: comments are moderated intermittently by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You must take sole responsibility for comments you post on this site. We will take reasonable steps to weed out anything that we consider to be offensive or inappropriate.