The number of bankers and traders in the European Union earning more than €1 million ($1.1 million) rose to a record in 2021 as securities firms took in bumper revenue and investment banks relocated staff to the bloc after Brexit.
(Bloomberg) — The number of bankers and traders in the European Union earning more than €1 million ($1.1 million) rose to a record in 2021 as securities firms took in bumper revenue and investment banks relocated staff to the bloc after Brexit.
The number of such “high earners” surged 42% from the previous year to 1,957, the European Banking Authority said in a statement on Thursday in Paris. That’s the highest level for members of the EU and related states since the EBA started collecting data in 2010. The figures don’t include the UK, which remains a major financial center after leaving the EU in 2020.
The EU’s best-paid banker was in Spain, earning between €14 million and €15 million, according to the EBA. “A significant amount of variable remuneration corresponds to one severance payment,” it said, without identifying the individual.
Global banks competed with each other in 2021 to hire bankers amid a pandemic-driven spike in trading activity and heightened demand for advice on mergers and acquisitions as well as stock and bond issuance. That competition came to a sudden halt the following year as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine weighed on corporate executives’ willingness to do deals, meaning bankers at many firms now face the prospect of lower bonuses for their performance in 2022.
The increase in 2021 also reflects higher salaries, the EBA said. Bonuses rose to the equivalent of 100.6% of fixed pay from 86.4% a year earlier, according to the weighted average for all high earners calculated by the EBA, which coordinates the implementation of regulation in Europe.
Bankers’ bonuses are capped at the equivalent of their annual salary in the EU, although lenders can seek permission from shareholders to raise that to two times base pay.
(Updates with best-paid banker in third paragraph)
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