Economic crisis, but not for banking fat cats

Bankers, cartoon

Dutch Van Lanschot bank proposes to increase the salary of its CEO Karl Guha by 20% to 1.5 million euros. The proposal for the three other top fat cats is a 25% increase to over a million.

The bank defends this, saying that at other Big Businesses fat cats get more than at Van Lanschot. However, Dutch NOS TV and daily De Volkskrant point out today that the corporations to which Van Lanschot compares itself to justify the pay rise are far bigger, with much more money and many more workers than Van Lanschot.

And I am not even talking about rank and file banking workers at Van Lanschot and elsewhere who get very small pay rises, not enough to keep up with inflation.

All this after the pay rise news at Unilever and ING bank multinational corporations.

Britain: Shareholders at 7 biggest outsourcing companies see dividends rise by two thirds: here.

The Directorate-General responsible for banking and financial regulation at the European Commission, DG FISMA, has a revolving door problem. One third of the people who occupied top positions in the Directorate‑General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union during the period 2008-2017 – following the onset of the financial crisis – either came from the financial industry or went there after their time at the Commission: here.