Barclays 'must revamp pay policies'
Barclays must go further in overhauling its pay practices after a culture of “overly generous” bonuses put profit first in the run-up to the bank’s Libor scandal, an independent review in England found today.
A report by top lawyer Anthony Salz, who was commissioned to look at the bank’s culture following its £290m (€342m) Libor settlement last year, found Barclays became “too complex to manage” and that excessive pay and bonuses saw some bankers believe they were “unaffected by the rules”.
In the 244-page report, which follows more than 600 interviews over eight months, Mr Salz calls for Barclays to bolster its board, strengthen its human resources function and ensure pay is linked to the “long-term success of the institution”.
He said Barclays has already taken steps to revamp its pay policies and culture, but added that more needed to be done.
“If Barclays is to achieve a material improvement in its reputation, it will need to continue to make changes to its top levels of pay so as to reflect talent and contribution more realistically, and in ways that mean something to the general public,” the report said.
“We also feel that there is more that it can do over time to emphasise forms of recognition for performance other than pay,” it added.
Sir David Walker, chairman of Barclays, admitted the report made for “uncomfortable reading”.
He said: “That is bound to be the case when one asks for an independent examination of this kind, and we must learn from the findings.”
