Falling City bonuses offset by regular pay rises

Falling City bonuses are being offset by increases in regular pay, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) claims.
Figures from the think-tank show that while bonus payouts for 2010/11 fell to £6.7 billion (2009/10: £7.3 billion), average regular pay for City workers was some 7% higher in the first quarter of 2011, compared with a year earlier.
For the UK as a whole the uplift amounted to just over 2% but Cebr continues to warn against excessive regulation on bank pay, or heavy-handedness with taxation, because of the increasingly globalised nature of the financial services industry.
Chief executive, Douglas McWilliams, explains: “There is a risk that excessive micro management and regulation of pay in the City by Government could accelerate the shift in financial services from the West to the East.”
He adds: “Our own research shows that excessive remuneration and profit in the financial sector is much better addressed through increasing competition rather than regulation”.