Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) chairman Sir Philip Hampton has admitted that bankers get paid too much.
Hampton told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that “bankers pay continues to be astonishingly high, almost certainly too high”. However, he defended the need to carry on paying such huge wages because “if we don’t pay our top people they leave”, the Guardian has reported.
His comments follow hot of the heels of the final Leaders’ Debate last night, during which Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg pledged to overhaul the banking sector and clamp down on excessive cash bonuses.
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RBS said it needed to consider changing a new bonus deal for chief executive Stephen Hester, which had been based on a target share price of 50p – below the current share price.
Clegg said he would limit bankers’ cash bonuses to £2,500, and make sure that loss-making banks could not pay bonuses at all.
