Mark Carney has warned bankers they should lose more of their pay in cases of wrongdoing – in addition to forfeiting bonuses – after a series of fines for bad conduct have failed to improve standards across the scandal-hit industry.
The Bank of England governor signalled a radical overhaul of the way bankers are paid as he told an audience in Singapore that repeated fines for scandals, such as manipulating Libor and last week’s £2.6bn penalties for rigging foreign exchange rates, were not enough to change behaviour.
New measures were needed to restore the public’s trust in the financial markets, Carney said, signalling that moves could include making bankers fund a bank’s fines out of their pay or potentially docking salaries.
“The repeated nature of these fines demonstrates that financial penalties [on banks] alone are not sufficient to address the issues raised,” he said.
“Fundamental change is needed to institutional culture, to compensation arrangements and to markets.”
He added that the succession of scandals “mean it is simply untenable now to argue that the problem is one of a few bad apples. The issue is with the barrels in which they are stored.” Policymakers have had bankers’ pay in their sights since the 2008 crisis.
They initially required bonuses to be paid in shares as well as cash and spread out over three to five years. This year the EU has stipulated that bonuses for senior bankers be capped at 100% of salary – or 200% with explicit approval from shareholders.
This has prompted a rise in the use of “allowances”, which are paid in addition to salary and bonuses to maintain bankers’ pay levels. Europe’s top banking regulator, however, has ruled that these arrangements breach the bonus cap.
Carney said: “It is unfortunate, for example, that new European rules to cap bonuses to half, or with shareholder approval, two-thirds, of total pay have the undesirable side effect of limiting the scope for remuneration to be cut back.
“This makes the case for additional reforms to ensure that the burden of excessive risk-taking and misconduct by staff can still be borne by those staff. Standards may need to be developed to put non-bonuses or fixed pay at risk. This could potentially be achieved through payment in instruments other than cash.”
He referred to an idea floated by the US central banker Bill Dudley to pay bankers partly in performance bonds, which he said “is worthy of investigation as a potentially elegant solution”.
Dudley, who is president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said such bonds could be used to pay fines, hitting bankers’ rather than shareholders’ pockets.
Andrew Tyrie, the MP who chairs the Treasury select committee, had warned the bonus cap could push up fixed pay - the element that Carney was now setting his sights on.
Carney said the public’s trust in the financial system “has been severely tested by taxpayer bailouts of systemic institutions, rewards perceived as undeserved, a perception that clients have become counterparties and egregious examples of misconduct and rigging of markets”.
His remarks follow similar comments from his colleagues at the Bank. Last month, the deputy governor Nemat “Minouche” Shafik said the current fines for misconduct were “like salt rubbed into the wounds to public confidence in financial markets”.
Her fellow deputy, Sir Jon Cunliffe, has also warned bankers to brace for pay cuts. Carney also pushed back against attempts by some bankers to argue against future reforms to the industry.
“Already we can hear some of the runners, particularly those at the back, making world-weary arguments that more reform will hurt jobs and growth, and even that financial crises are just something that happens every five to seven years. If that were true, we are due for another crisis about now. Does anyone find that acceptable?”
Carney’s remarks come as banks face scrutiny of plans to claw back bonuses following last week’s fines for foreign exchange rigging.
The BBC reported last night future payments to former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Stephen Hester were part of a review by the bank. There is no suggestion Hester, who left RBS last year, knew about any wrongdoing.
theguardian.com
The Bank of England governor signalled a radical overhaul of the way bankers are paid as he told an audience in Singapore that repeated fines for scandals, such as manipulating Libor and last week’s £2.6bn penalties for rigging foreign exchange rates, were not enough to change behaviour.
New measures were needed to restore the public’s trust in the financial markets, Carney said, signalling that moves could include making bankers fund a bank’s fines out of their pay or potentially docking salaries.
“The repeated nature of these fines demonstrates that financial penalties [on banks] alone are not sufficient to address the issues raised,” he said.
“Fundamental change is needed to institutional culture, to compensation arrangements and to markets.”
He added that the succession of scandals “mean it is simply untenable now to argue that the problem is one of a few bad apples. The issue is with the barrels in which they are stored.” Policymakers have had bankers’ pay in their sights since the 2008 crisis.
They initially required bonuses to be paid in shares as well as cash and spread out over three to five years. This year the EU has stipulated that bonuses for senior bankers be capped at 100% of salary – or 200% with explicit approval from shareholders.
This has prompted a rise in the use of “allowances”, which are paid in addition to salary and bonuses to maintain bankers’ pay levels. Europe’s top banking regulator, however, has ruled that these arrangements breach the bonus cap.
Carney said: “It is unfortunate, for example, that new European rules to cap bonuses to half, or with shareholder approval, two-thirds, of total pay have the undesirable side effect of limiting the scope for remuneration to be cut back.
“This makes the case for additional reforms to ensure that the burden of excessive risk-taking and misconduct by staff can still be borne by those staff. Standards may need to be developed to put non-bonuses or fixed pay at risk. This could potentially be achieved through payment in instruments other than cash.”
He referred to an idea floated by the US central banker Bill Dudley to pay bankers partly in performance bonds, which he said “is worthy of investigation as a potentially elegant solution”.
Dudley, who is president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said such bonds could be used to pay fines, hitting bankers’ rather than shareholders’ pockets.
Andrew Tyrie, the MP who chairs the Treasury select committee, had warned the bonus cap could push up fixed pay - the element that Carney was now setting his sights on.
Carney said the public’s trust in the financial system “has been severely tested by taxpayer bailouts of systemic institutions, rewards perceived as undeserved, a perception that clients have become counterparties and egregious examples of misconduct and rigging of markets”.
His remarks follow similar comments from his colleagues at the Bank. Last month, the deputy governor Nemat “Minouche” Shafik said the current fines for misconduct were “like salt rubbed into the wounds to public confidence in financial markets”.
Her fellow deputy, Sir Jon Cunliffe, has also warned bankers to brace for pay cuts. Carney also pushed back against attempts by some bankers to argue against future reforms to the industry.
“Already we can hear some of the runners, particularly those at the back, making world-weary arguments that more reform will hurt jobs and growth, and even that financial crises are just something that happens every five to seven years. If that were true, we are due for another crisis about now. Does anyone find that acceptable?”
Carney’s remarks come as banks face scrutiny of plans to claw back bonuses following last week’s fines for foreign exchange rigging.
The BBC reported last night future payments to former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Stephen Hester were part of a review by the bank. There is no suggestion Hester, who left RBS last year, knew about any wrongdoing.
theguardian.com
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