MAIL Online: City banks are preparing to lavish record bonuses on staff less than a year after bringing the world economy to the brink of meltdown.
Many high-flying traders and dealmakers are looking forward to ' mindblowing' payouts on a par with the rewards handed out at the height of the banking boom in 2007.
This is despite many of the banks only being able to turn a profit because they have been bailed out with taxpayers' money.
Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs is expected to confirm next week that it will pay an average of almost £400,000 in pay and bonuses to each of its 5,500 London-based staff - a total of £2.2billion.
Its profits are soaring on the back of the $6.2billion it received from the U.S. taxpayer last year.
Royal Bank of Scotland recently revealed chief executive Stephen Hester was in line for a £9.7million pay package if he brings the bailed-out bank's share price up to 70p.
Another bailed- out financial giant, Citigroup, is raising basic pay for many of its investment bankers and traders by up to 50 per cent, to make up for the loss in bonus pay.
Nationalised U.S. insurance firm AIG is planning to pay millions of dollars more in bonuses to dozens of top bosses across the world.
Last year it paid out more than £100million despite being rescued by the U.S. government after racking up £60billion in losses from reckless bets on toxic debt.
Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Barclays are also planning major rewards.
This is despite their actions triggering a recession which is expected to cost a million Britons their jobs.
The return of 'business as usual' to the banking sector makes a mockery of the Government's claim to have stamped out the culture of greed and reckless risk taking in the banking industry. Big City bonuses are back! Less than a year after banks took billions in taxpayer-funded bailouts... >>> Simon Duke | Saturday, July 11, 2009
