Now the rest MUST follow suit
THE bosses of the big banks should follow Joe Garner’s example and volunteer without delay to give up some of their lavish pay and bonus packets.
The Prudential Regulation Authority has made clear it does not expect banks to pay any cash bonuses to its top executives and traders for this year. The City watchdog also expects them to think very hard before making any other incentive payments or awards in the form of shares.
Yet so far, there has been deafening silence – with the honourable exception of Nationwide’s Mr Garner – on whether these wealthy men and women are indeed prepared to forgo some of their enormous pay.
Is it fair to expect them to take a hit in the wallet for a crisis that was not, just for once, of their making?
Bonuses are unlikely to be enormous this year anyway because balance sheets will be scarred by billions of pounds of bad debts.
That, however, is beside the point. At this moment of great national crisis, the leaders of our lending banks need to show solidarity and a sense of community. They need to show sensitivity to the fact that the rest of the country is in agonies and the economy is on the brink of disaster.
And they need to show support for the thousands of their own modestly-paid staff who are taking risks by braving the epidemic to keep branches and call centres going.
The pandemic is an opportunity for our banks and their chief executives to redeem themselves once and for all for the damage they inflicted on us, their innocent victims, in the financial crisis.
Giving up some of their rewards would be a symbolic gesture more than anything else – but gestures and symbols can be very powerful. If ever there was a time for our leading lenders to show us they care, that time is now.