Friday 30 July 2010

One pay to rule them all?

The FSA has grabbed the headlines today by extending the number of companies who will have their remuneration policies restricted. Something we were all expecting and really this is being done under EU law as per usual.

As the big banks have changed, now other financial institutions will do too.

As ever, there seems to be a big patch missing. The City is made up of Insurance, Banks and Investment Management in the main; but they are advised by Lawyers, Consultants and Accountants.

These are the people who also earn big money, easing into 6 figures in their late twenties, and signed off on the the rubbish that caused the credit crisis. Also they are paid volume and utilisation related bonus's just like the other Financial Services firms- but they escape censure still in this new world.

7 comments:

Steven_L said...

Lawyers, consultants and accountants? You mean like the lawyers that make up the benches of the HofC, the consultants that give them lucrative moonlighting contracts and teh accountants that sign off all their expenses and tax dodges?

The bankers and investment managers have probably lost them a few bob over the last couple of years.

Anonymous said...

In this area, the enemy is complexity.

The answer is simplicity...make things simple.

Just look at the plethora of mortgages, "specially qualified mortgage advisors", dealing BS, with fees every time you sneeze.

Finance, in its broadest definitions, is in decline...and a good thing too.

Small wonder the Brics are loathe to open up their finance markets.

All part of the reset of the west.

Get used to it!

Soon we may re-learn how to make things, and reward in accordance to value.

Anonymous said...

I have earnt a living both as a lawyer and as a banker. I know which work entailed less education, less training, less responsibilty, and less work combined with earnings (given my age) beyond the dreams of avarice. I'll leave it to you to deduce which job it was.

Anonymous said...

PS

"Bankers" in their mid to late twenties were on six, even seven figs when Maggie was still PM. The writing has been on the wall for decades.

CityUnslicker said...

Anon re bankers and lawyer s- don't disagree as to who is the most overpaid out of bankers and lawyers.

However, when the net is descending across the City, I am noting who is escaping it, despite complicity in signing all these deals for the bankers....

James Higham said...

As the big banks have changed, now other financial institutions will do too.

The unspoken change is that the physical gold reserves are so depleted and yet on the balance sheets - they're not.

That's the bottom line - fraud with a capital F.

Anonymous said...

CityUnslicker

In my experience the bankers signed the deals (I have still got the pens to prove it).