Banker Bonuses Are a Pre-Coronavirus Thing
Cash bonuses aren’t going to fly while regulators are going easy on bank capital. Stock rewards aren’t as welcome, but they may not be a disaster.
Hanging on to your job will be a bonus.
Photographer: Pacific Press/LightRocketFinancial regulators are applying all of the lessons of the 2008 credit crisis at record speed. In the past few weeks, they’ve worked with central banks to pump liquidity into markets and to make it easier for banks to lend. It’s essential now that lenders keep providing money to companies and households whose incomes have evaporated in the Covid-19 lockdowns. If the banks stop functioning, what hope for the rest of the economy?
The next chapter in European regulators’ crisis playbook is ensuring that the banks don’t hand much of their excess capital to investors or keep paying hefty bonuses to senior staff. Supervisors are trying to make sure that financial firms remain solid by easing their capital rules, thereby freeing up hundreds of billions of dollars — that places a heavy burden on the banks to act responsibly. Shares in British banks, including HSBC Holdings Plc and Barclays Plc, fell sharply on Wednesday after they halted dividends at the Bank of England’s request.