Bank bonuses: Who gave them up and who got £10m?

John Varley (pictured) and Bob Diamond were the first bankers to say ‘thanks but no thanks’ to a bumper payout. The chief executive and president of Barclays were both awarded bonuses for 2009 - a year in which the bank made record profits of £11.6bn. But on 16 February we learned the pair had rejected the offer in an attempt to calm the public’s deep concerns over pay
Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP

Varley and Diamond (seen here) will not go hungry, though - Diamond himself received £22m from the sale of Barclays Global Investors last year. He also sold £5m worth of Barclays shares just before Christmas
Photograph: Sarah Lee/Guardian

Other Barclays employeees will share more than £2bn. That will work out as a bonus of around £19,000 for the average worker, but investment bankers in its Barclays Capital division can look foward to an average payment of £95,000. Varley insisted the bank’s objective was to “pay the minimum” bonus to those at BarCap, while Diamond said the UK public should celebrate Barclays’ record profits
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It took just a few days for Varley and Diamond’s unusual move to become a trend. On 21 February it emerged that Stephen Hester, chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, was turning down a £1.6m bonus that would have more than doubled his pay for 2009. RBS made a loss of £3.6bn last year, better than the record-breaking £24bn loss suffered in 2008
Photograph: David Moir/REUTERS

But following a lengthy tussle with the government over remuneration policy, RBS did succeed in paying £1.3bn to 22,000 investment bankers. It pointed out that most of its underlying profits came from investment banking, but Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable compared the move to “a football team paying their striker for scoring when they’ve just been relegated”
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By this point the pressure was mounting on Eric Daniels, chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group. On 22 February Daniels, blamed by many shareholders for rescuing HBOS, announced he would not take a £2.3m bonus. Lloyds chairman Sir Win Bischoff hailed Daniels’ “leadership”, but City experts questioned how Daniels could have qualified for such a large payout given the huge losses suffered by Lloyds since the HBOS merger
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Daniels’ decision looked extremely sensible a few days later, when Lloyds disappointed the City with a £6.3bn loss. Its impairment charges against bad debts soared to £24bn, from £14.9bn. Lloyds also faced scrutiny over whether it was sticking to the government’s targets for lending to small businesses and consumers
Photograph: Carl Court/PA

HSBC made it a clean sweep on 1 March, announcing that chief executive Michael Geoghegan would give his £4m bonus to charity. Geoghegan, whose wife runs the Education Africa charity, said his family were “uncomfortable” with such information becoming public. He also rejected an increase in his £1m basic salary. Despite his move, HSBC is sharing £38m between five top bankers. This includes £10m for the head of its global investment banking arm, Stuart Gulliver
Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

HSBC has riden the economic crisis rather better than many rival banks, and has not needed to take cash from the UK government or overseas investors to keep afloat. But its performance for 2009 disappointed the City, with pre-tax profits down 24% to $7bn (£4.63bn)
Photograph: Tim Ockenden/PA

Standard Chartered chief executive Peter Sands has become the latest bank boss to donate his bonus to charity, giving his £2.1m bonus to an unnamed good cause
Photograph: PR

And over at the Treasury, Alistair Darling can look forward to around £2.5bn of extra tax revenue. His 50% windfall levy on bank bonuses was expected to yield just £500m, but it will actually be much more lucrative because banks have shown little interest in reining in their bonus payments
Photograph: Cate Gillon/Getty

Northern Rock chief executive Gary Hoffman is waiving his bonus although the bank said a new long-term incentive scheme was being drawn up for the former Barclays executivePhotograph: Northern Rock/PA
Photograph: Northern Rock/PA