Am I missing something ?

We'll you know what they say about bank bonuses 'we have to reward success'.....oh wait....

Steve
 
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You are missing something - possibly!

Perhaps without the efforts of the staff who were paid bonuses, the losses would have been far greater!

Imagine, as an example, a garage business where the workshop loses a fortune but the hard working salesmen in the sales department generate a profit from their sales. Should they not be paid the commission they've earned because the business as a whole is making a loss?
 
I remember talking someone who's wife was a fund manager in the city. She still got her bonus if she lost less than everyone else!!

David
 
Having read the report on the BBC website, it seems they made a £2.5bn profit on normal activity and the loss was a consequence of historic bad decisions. 20% of trading profit going to reward current staff doesn't seem unreasonable.

Anyway, it upsets Unite, so has to be a good thing. :naughty:
 
As others have said, you need to look at the detail. There are a number of different parts to the group, and if they have made a profit they should be rewarded.

Like it or not, the banking industry pays big bonuses, and if RBS don't pay they will not attract the right staff and then losses could be more. Its very easy to mock!
 
cambsno said:
As others have said, you need to look at the detail. There are a number of different parts to the group, and if they have made a profit they should be rewarded.

Like it or not, the banking industry pays big bonuses, and if RBS don't pay they will not attract the right staff and then losses could be more. Its very easy to mock!
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Surely it's their job to make a profit and receive a wage to do so. The only reward necessary if they have done extraordinarily well should be promotion.
 
When you employ people to make a profit (ie sales people) it makes sense to pay a basic then bonus. You would be the first to moan if they got £2m each as a basic.
 
Detail my arse!
They lose 8.2 Billion and still pay bonuses. Tell the 40,000 ordinary working staff they've sacked since 2008 how good the Management are, with possibly another 30,000 to go... link HERE.

The system stinks!
 
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cambsno said:
When you employ people to make a profit (ie sales people) it makes sense to pay a basic then bonus. You would be the first to moan if they got £2m each as a basic.
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I'm willing to bet that these people in banking, their basic wage isn't an insubstantial sum in the first place. I bet they are earning a darn sight more than counter staff.
 
nilagin said:
I'm willing to bet that these people in banking, their basic wage isn't an insubstantial sum in the first place. I bet they are earning a darn sight more than counter staff.
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Of course they are, and they should as they do a more important job. If the market says that an investment trader needs to be paid 100k plus a bonus of 1m then what do you think would happen if they paid just 30k and 10k bonus?? No one there and that part folds. I seriously doubt that someone who makes a 100m loss will get a huge bonus. The detail is important as there are many parts to the group. When I was at BT there were 4 main parts of the business, 3 made good profits and one made a huge loss which meant overall BT made a loss. Should the people in those 3 profit making areas be denied bonus?

Market forces work well, if someone can command huge wages/bonus then that's the way business is.
 
It's not right. Although that being said I just got a bonus from the supermarket I work for. But that was only because our store made more profit than what was expected.
 
cambsno said:
Of course they are, and they should as they do a more important job. If the market says that an investment trader needs to be paid 100k plus a bonus of 1m then what do you think would happen if they paid just 30k and 10k bonus?? No one there and that part folds. I seriously doubt that someone who makes a 100m loss will get a huge bonus. The detail is important as there are many parts to the group. When I was at BT there were 4 main parts of the business, 3 made good profits and one made a huge loss which meant overall BT made a loss. Should the people in those 3 profit making areas be denied bonus?

Market forces work well, if someone can command huge wages/bonus then that's the way business is.
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And after already having to be bailed out, the bank ends up making huge losses, yeah! great way to do business with other peoples money.
When Ford Motor Company were in dire straits a few years back, William Clay Ford refused to take his yearly salary until the returned to profit. They took on Alan Mulally to make the turn around and mortgaged the company name as well as factories, raising the money to make the changes. They didn't have to file for bankruptcy or go begging to governments for a bail out, in fact Ford only asked the US government to bailout the other American car companies. All bonuses were stopped across the board worldwide until the company returned to profit. Alan Mulally never got a bonus until the company made a profit, even though the work he had done had probably made savings and started to improve the companies financial position.
Even though Ford of Europe made a big loss again in 2013, Ford overall made a profit of $7.2billion. Ford have been paying back the loan every successive year.
That's the way to do business.
 
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I heard an influential opinion from the sector suggest high bonuses will continue because it's seen by many as the only way to pay for the best who can safely step-down and manoeuvre the huge figures involved (figures of fraud we'll say in the future wont we) from the various problematic investment banking layers that are the problem, while maintaining full trading credibility with the rest of the world markets.
So if i'm getting this right, RBS is enormous and heavily in debt, but solvent, Just the income to London City etcetera from RBS and and other four horsemen for 'servicing' the bad debts becuase lending isn't working, is deemed an large asset because otherwise the bank wouldn't be solvent from anyone's perspective...and thats bad for all of us, which I can see, but I'm really not so convinced that's the whole story or outcome if done differently?

Its like playing monopoly with your nan who's run out of money but you keep feeding her notes under the table cos if she leaves the game their will be know one left to play with except the banker. ..isn't it.
 
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Bankers are like footballers, if there was a universal agreement that their basic and bonus was restricted to say 50k each, very few of them could or would be able to get a job doing anything else that paid better. I was in financial services in the 1980's when Euro bond dealers were made redundant having been on good 6 figure incomes. I only know of one that got a job following the redundancy and he got a job as a milkman.
As for all the staff being made redundant from the banks, many of these will be the 'computer says no' types so I for one will not lose any sleep over it.
 
nilagin said:
And after already having to be bailed out, the bank ends up making huge losses, yeah! great way to do business with other peoples money.
When Ford Motor Company were in dire straits a few years back, William Clay Ford refused to take his yearly salary until the returned to profit. They took on Alan Mulally to make the turn around and mortgaged the company name as well as factories, raising the money to make the changes. They didn't have to file for bankruptcy or go begging to governments for a bail out, in fact Ford only asked the US government to bailout the other American car companies. All bonuses were stopped across the board worldwide until the company returned to profit. Alan Mulally never got a bonus until the company made a profit, even though the work he had done had probably made savings and started to improve the companies financial position.
Even though Ford of Europe made a big loss again in 2013, Ford overall made a profit of $7.2billion. Ford have been paying back the loan every successive year.
That's the way to do business.
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:clap: Nice point.

Good old fashioned capitalism, no strings attached.
 
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