Royal Bank of Scotland is poised to stoke the row over City excess by announcing that it has paid more than 300 top executives an average of more than £1m each.
State-controlled RBS is being forced to disclose senior staff’s pay for the first time under rules imposed by the City regulator.
The details will emerge in the bank’s annual report this week, when it must say how many “code” staff — individuals deemed to take significant daily risk for the bank — there are and their aggregate pay.
Analysts believe that the total pay bill for the group of key executives will stretch to about £350m.
The report will also reveal more about giant bonuses for the bank’s bosses.
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It emerged last week that Stephen Hester, the RBS chief executive, could earn up to £7.7m for 2010 if all his performance-linked bonuses pay out.
Hester’s pay deal was announced as part of a package of salary and share awards split between the bank’s nine most senior executives and worth up to £28m.
The annual report will show that a handful of RBS executives have been awarded further multi-million-pound bonuses in addition to the payouts made public last week.
The additional bonuses will be paid in bonds issued by the bank. Analysts do not believe that the report will identify any banker who is paid more than Hester.
Banks are now revealing more than they ever have about pay. Barclays said last week that it is paying Jerry del Missier, co-head of its investment bank, up to £21m for 2010. That is almost double the potential pay packet awarded to Bob Diamond, the bank’s chief executive.
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Rich Ricci, the other boss of Barclays Capital, will receive up to £20.7m. Between them, the two have also accumulated £63m in the past 12 months that has been paid out from bonuses awarded in previous years.
None of these pay deals would have been set out publicly were it not for the Financial Services Authority’s new code on remuneration and a deal reached with the government through the so-called Project Merlin agreement.
The banks are now required to reveal the pay awarded to the five highest-paid senior executives below board level.
Although they are not required to name the individuals, they can be identified by cross referencing the disclosures with stock exchange announcements about executive share awards.
The banks are also required to disclose the number of employees who take material risks for the bank daily. It is the bank’s responsibility to decide who fits this “code staff”description.
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Barclays said last week that it has 231 code staff. Analysts believe RBS will claim that it has between 250 and 350 such staff because it is likely to use a more conservative definition.