Top China bankers´ salaries halved in 2015 after state sector pay reforms

BEIJING, April 5: The chairmen and presidents of China´s five biggest banks saw their 2015 compensation slashed by a record 50 percent, the lenders´ annual reports showed, after Beijing-mandated pay reforms for executives of state-owned firms were implemented last year.
Jiang Jianqing, chairman of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) , the world´s biggest lender by assets, made less than 550,000 yuan ($85,000) in total compensation last year, down 52 percent from 1.1 million Yuan in 2014, according to the bank´s latest annual report.
That was only 0.3 percent of the $27 million total compensation received by JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon in 2015. It was also a fraction of the 14.3 million Swiss francs ($14.8 million) that UBS Chief Executive Sergio Ermotti received in total compensation for 2015.The hefty pay cuts for its top bankers came as China’s weak economy pressured the lenders´ profits.
China´s big banks last month reported their weakest profit growth in a decade, with interest margins shrinking in the face of successive interest rate cuts, and non-performing loans at a 10-year high.
Beijing is aiming to transform executive compensation at its biggest state firms by cutting salaries, curbing misuse of non-salary benefits and holding managers responsible for the performance of their firms, as part of the government´s state-owned enterprise reform efforts. Under the plan, which is being implemented from 2015, top bosses at 72 central government-owned firms, which also includes well-known conglomerates such as PetroChina Co Ltd, China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (Sinopec) and China Mobile Ltd face pay cuts of as much as 50 percent. China Construction Bank , the country´s second-biggest lender, slashed chairman Wang Hongzhang´s annual compensation to less than 600,000 yuan in 2015 from 1.2 million yuan in 2014, the bank´s annual report showed. -Reuters