In a documentary, What Is A Banker Really Worth? airing on Sky News at 7pm this evening, he is asked by business presenter Jeff Randall whether the public has seen the end of “high watermark of bonuses,” to which Hampton answers: “I think so, yes.”
Last month, Hampton gave up his £1.4m bonus amid public pressure, a move followed by chief executive Stephen Hester.
In the documentary, Hampton explains the reasons why bonuses are so high.
He told Sky News: “Part of the reason for the pay is that the profits were not sustainable.
“They were there for a few years but they were not sustainable and the pay moved up to that level of profits and it now needs to be corrected down.”
However, Sir Nigel Rudd, former deputy chairman of Barclays defended high bonuses, insisting that former Barclays chief executive, John Varley was underpaid for his “phenomenal performance” during the financial crisis.
In his last year at Barclays, Varley received a salary of £1.1m, a bonus of £2.2m and a performance cash incentive of £550,000.
Earlier this week, Lloyds Banking Group cancelled bonus payments for its former chief executive and a dozen other directors over their involvement in the costly misselling of payment protection insurance.
It is the first time a British bank has exercised a “claw back” option on executive pay packages since the financial crisis.
Yesterday, Sky News revealed that RBS is to pay out just under £400m in bonuses to its investment banking staff for 2011, which has been agreed with the government.
The lender is to announce its full-year results tomorrow.
In a report, out earlier this week by non-executive search firm Hanson Green and private equity recruiter Directorbank, it found that 94% of non-executives think they should have the option to claw back executive pay.
The report, Life in the Boardroom also showed that 45% of non-executive directors think the ratio of CEO pay to average employee pay should be disclosed.
Pete Gwilliam, owner of specialist banking recruitment firm Virtus Search, said the bonus issue is a red herring.
“Surely what everyone wants to know is what the bonus is targeted around or the key performance areas. The problem is often that bonuses are not linked to qualitative measures, which they should be,” said Gwilliam.
He said although proc fees are not a bonus, he advocates paying brokers their fees in two stages.
“The stage one payment should be for origination, where a second payment should reflect the case performance, so the broker’s client and business management,” he added.
