Barclays is set to pay it staff bonuses in excess of £2bn.
The bank, which will reveal its full-year results on Tuesday (16 February), is expected to say it is paying out less than it normally would.
It is thought Barclays will announce profits of about £10.3bn for 2009 – up 70% on the previous year, the BBC reported.
Barclays is expected to pay out around £4.5bn in total remuneration to the 23,000 investment bankers employed at its investment bank, Barclays Capital.
Average pay for Barclays Capital’s employees will be about £196,000 and just under half of this will be in the form of bonuses.
Meanwhile as RBS finalises its bonus pool – which is expected to reach between £1.3bn and £1.5bn – two of the bank’s top investment bankers quit last week in what is said to have been frustration over the company’s scaling back of its bonus policy, the Telegraph reported.
The resignations of Steve Ashley, who heads RBS’s trading division, and Chris Fleming, a senior salesman, are said to have shocked RBS investment banking staff.
One trader at RBS said: “This is a disaster. The government has got to make a decision – either it ignores the noise around bonuses, lets the bank pay up and ultimately generates a return for the taxpayer or it stamps down, our best people leave and the taxpayer loses out.”
Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance
Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday
RBS’s bonuses this year will be paid two-thirds in deferred shares.