A report 1,957 bankers throughout Europe earned greater than €1m (£878,000) final yr, in accordance with information that exhibits the dimensions at which a few of the best-paid jobs in Britain have moved from London to the EU since Brexit.
The European Banking Authority disclosed on Thursday that the variety of bankers incomes €1m or extra a yr had elevated by greater than 40%, from 1,383 in 2020 to 1,957 in 2021. It’s the highest variety of €1m-plus European bankers for the reason that EBA started amassing the info in 2010.
The figures don’t embrace the UK, which left the EU after Brexit in 2020. Earlier than it was excluded from the info, the UK had persistently led the bankers’ pay rankings. In 2017, 3,567 UK-based bankers collected greater than €1m.
The EBA mentioned the rise within the variety of €1m-plus European bankers had been brought on by booming funding banking income in addition to “additional relocations from workers after Brexit from the UK to the EU and in addition as general wage ranges elevated”.
The regulator mentioned 70% of the rise in excessive earners was in banks working in Italy, France and Spain.
The one highest paid banker earned €14m-15m in Spain. The EBA didn’t id the individual, however mentioned that “a big quantity of variable remuneration corresponds to at least one severance cost”. Their pay works out not less than 466 occasions the typical wage in Spain.
Three extra bankers – one every from Germany, Spain and France – have been paid €13m-14m.
Many of the €1m-plus bankers lived in Germany, which has a giant monetary hub in Frankfurt, making up 589 (30%) of the excessive earners within the report. France took second place with 371 (19%), adopted by Italy with 351 (18%).
The typical worth of the bankers’ bonuses labored out at simply over 100% of their fastened pay, a rise from 86.4% the earlier yr.
The regulator mentioned the soar in bonuses had been boosted by “the nice monetary efficiency of the establishments” in addition to “the reduction of related Covid-19 restrictions and within the continuation of relocation of workers to the EU actions within the context of Brexit”.
Luke Hildyard, the director of the Excessive Pay Centre, a thinktank that campaigns for fairer pay for staff, mentioned: “In an period of widespread hardship and falling residing requirements, these figures reveal that the supersized incomes of the extremely wealthy do little or no to profit the remainder of us. The creation of extra millionaire bankers is an indication of financial failure – it exhibits the worldwide financial system is badly structured, with far an excessive amount of of the wealth that’s created by everybody captured by a tiny variety of companies and ultra-rich people.”