The New Compensation For Investment Bankers?

This will be a good point of discussion during the Financial Markets Career talk. The present global financial crisis may actually result in some changes in how salaries and bonuses are to be paid. The following are the latest information from Royal Bank of Scotland. Base salaries for 1st- 3rd years bumped by $10K. Their starting pay now will be:
1st year base: $70k
2nd year base: $80k
3rd year base: $90k

3rd years promoted to Associate: Base: $100K- no signing bonus

Numbers out today for Global Banking and Markets. All bonuses are 100% deferred- over 3 years, subject to clawbacks. Terms still not defined.

Bonus Ranges:
1st year: $40k-$50k
2nd year: $50k-$60k
3rd year: $60k- $70k

What that means is that these bonuses are declared only and can be clawed back within a certain period if performance of the unit or company does not match up to predefined criteria.

Example, a second year RBS employee may be on $80,000 a year ... I think their year end is June, so the declared bonus for this employee may be $55,000. The terms are not clear yet but if there is a clawback, it will mean that the employee won't get to see the bonus for a certain period, say 2 years. Within that 2 years, the employee's performance, his/her department's performance and/or company's overall performance must match up to predefined criteria - then and only then will the employee get his/her $55,000 bonus. That amount may be lesser if any of the predetermined criteria were to be not attained.



p/s photos: Kou Shibasaki