Reuters reports that Dutch banking and insurance group ING bowed to public calls for restraint on banking pay on Thursday, abolishing bonus payments for most of its 19,000 Netherlands-based banking staff.
'We are part of society and you need to be open to the opinions in society', a firm spokesperson said, adding the bank was also responding to a survey which showed staff wanted a simpler pay scheme.
Some 120 senior managers, as well as staff including investment bankers and mortgage advisers will still receive bonuses, the spokeswoman said, though they would be smaller than in the past.
In the meantime, Bloomberg reports that senior hedge-fund and private-equity managers face longer waits for bonuses under proposals from the European Union’s top markets regulator.
Bonuses for risk-taking employees should be withheld for a certain length of time to align managers’ interests with the long-term performance of the fund, the European Securities and Markets Authority said today. Staff with the “most material impact on the risk profile” of the fund should be subject to longer retention periods, ESMA said without specifying how long.
'The proposed remuneration guidelines for alternative investment funds are an important step in creating a single EU rulebook by ensuring the consistent application' of bonus laws approved by ministers, Steven Maijoor, chairman of Paris-based ESMA, said in an e-mailed statement.
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