More than one in ten bankers and traders in the UK and Europe could receive no bonus this year, as banks slash their year-end pay-outs following weaker revenues.
Underperformers will miss out on the billions of pounds of bonuses doled out early next year, with bonus pools expected to be down as much as 20 to 30 per cent at most big investment banks, according to Armstrong International, the European executive search firm.
“Compensation is being skewed more aggressively than ever,” said Matthew Osborne, a partner at Armstrong. “Banks are saying: ‘Let’s pay only the top revenue generators and the lower-ranked staff, but not the mediocre people in the middle’.”