Will bankers turn against bankers?

Today brings the news, distressing to some quarters, that HSBC is paying its chief executive Stuart Gulliver £7.2 million — making him the highest-paid banker in the UK for the financial year so far. The remuneration comes on the back of a 28 per cent jump in full-year profits, which means HSBC has bucked the dismal trend of other British banks.
 
Still, as you might expect, it’s the buoyant figures denoting Gulliver’s pay — and those of the top 170 members of staff — that are making the headlines, with calls for HSBC to explain itself. This is part of the regular drumbeat against financial ‘fat cats’ that’s been going on for months, so in that sense it’s nothing new. But as this continues one wonders if a new development will emerge: will bankers get disgruntled with fellow bankers?
 
Simply put, times are tough, even for financiers (relatively speaking). HSBC itself has outlined plans to chop off 30,000 jobs by 2013. Credit Suisse will get rid of 3,500 jobs and Citigroup 4,500, while RBS foresees 3,500 cuts. So far, the plan for laid-off bankers has been to flee Europe and move Eastward to greener pastures — but Asian bankers, too, are starting to feel the pinch, with their bonuses down this year.
 
The thing is, the crème de la crème of profits has always gone to one kind of banker — the investment banker. But the pie has normally been big enough for everyone in the financial industry to have a nice slice too. Now the pie is shrinking fast, leaving more people with crumbs. RBS, for instance, has paid out £785 million in bonuses, but much of this has gone to its 17,000 investment bankers. Their average bonus, as the Daily Mail notes was £22,941 — that’s £1,000 more than what the average worker in an RBS branch earns as salary in a year.
 
One thing that’s arising is faint rumblings — and some apparent remorse — from sections of the financial sector against the renegade members of their own industry, with this semi-confessional book being one recent example. As Fraser points out, it’s profit-oriented organisations that are the best in exposing and correcting their own problems. It would be interesting if bankers took up arms against their own.