Who didn't get paid (Part III)?

With the dust settling on bonus payments, another poor payer has emerged from the fug. This time it's Bank of America.

According to Financial News, poor payouts at the US bank are behind a string of defections in the past two weeks that have included the head of European equity finance and structured credit trading, the head of international rates trading, foreign exchange traders and structurers, an options trader, and a senior swaps trader.

The paper quotes 'a source close to the bank' as saying that this year's bonuses, plus market instability, had prompted "a lot of movement, very quickly".

But were B of A's bonuses really as bad as all that? Headhunters are notoriously recalcitrant when it comes to discussing events at particular institutions (who may one day be their clients), but a few were willing to talk on condition of anonymity.

"Bank of America never pay particularly good bonuses," says one fixed income headhunter. "I don't think they've paid particularly badly this year - I certainly haven't had lots of calls from people looking to leave. However, they do have a tendency to offer big guarantees to people they want to keep and this may have led to others being stiffed."

A derivatives-focused headhunter confirms Bank of America has its fair share of disgruntled types, but says it's not entirely down to bonuses: "It wasn't a stellar year for them and there were certainly some people who weren't particularly well paid.

"But the unhappiness is more down to a perceived lack of ambition - if you're not paid but you can see people around you getting paid and you know where the business is going, that's one thing. But if you're not paid and you don't know what's coming next, it's a completely different matter."